What to look for at Tech Senate?

Chitra Padmanabhan / Mumbai

The curtains are drawn, the lights are dimmed and the stage is set. As we embark upon the final preparation for ‘Technology Senate,’ we can already feel the euphoria running through our nerves. Last minute confirmations, event co-ordination, banners, posters, speaker lists, sponsors—all these give us a feel of being right in the midst of the event. It is heartening to see CIOs canceling other important commitments just to be present and attend the event. Serious IT decision-makers are also excited and all set to absorb every bit of info and stay updated.

The core essence of Tech Senate

Technology Senate has been devised to address the concerns of CIOs who are practically the brains behind IT systems running in their companies. As more and more businesses are increasingly dependent on technology, the role of the CIO is undergoing a paradigm shift. Since technology is ever-changing they are forced to find ways and means to keep themselves abreast of the latest applications. Most CIOs we spoke to said that as the market is improving they are receiving better support from their respective managements to invest in the latest technologies. This, they say, has given them greater liberty to turn towards advanced technologies without cutting corners. Considering the positive vibes shown by the economy, most companies are willing spend extra on IT. The time is ripe for an event like Technology Senate wherein CIOs can pack their brains with relevant knowledge to be replicated in their companies.

How to be process driven

It is commonly observed that any new technology gets genuine acceptability only when supported by adequate case studies. This means that organisations are wary of making the first move towards any new technology. The reasons for this could be many. Most organisations adopt a conservative approach while investing in technology or adopt any new technology only when they feel threatened by competition. Technology Senate intends to keep away the jargon associated with new applications and concentrate on the usability of IT in any organisation. The event intends to drive home the point that deploying the latest technologies is only the first step. Organisations need to make optimum use of their systems to derive better RoI. For instance, an organisation deploying a business intelligence tool cannot expect bottomlines to improve unless the BI tool is accurately tuned to its organisational needs. To derive best results organisations need to get into the mould of being process-driven rather than being product-driven.

An event like Tech Senate can bear fruit only when designed keeping in mind the relevance of various technologies in the current period. The tracks for the event have been chosen after a careful analysis of latest trends in various sectors. Experts from the editorial team have also provided their inputs on various topics.

Track 1 - Information Storage and Management

Storage is one area no organisation can afford to ignore. With the burgeoning amount of data, organisations are forced to invest regularly on storage-related hardware and software. As and when an organisation deploys newer applications, there arises a need to manage data generated through these applications. The track basically seeks to address various challenges faced by CIOs in their bid to manage storage effectively. The sessions in the ‘Information Storage and Management’ track would include topics like strategies and policies that would help organisations manage storage effectively, an update on latest technologies and an insight into how companies can ensure security and storage of data at a reasonable cost.

Track 2 - IT Leadership and Management

Track 2 intends to stress on the changing role of the CIO. Information technology is central to the success of any modern organisation. IT allows an organisation to fine-tune its business processes, improve productivity, reduce inventory cycles and cut costs. It has emerged from being just a back-office function to being a vital business enabler. With this the role of the CIO is getting transformed from that of a technologist to a strategist, one who has to understand business objectives and opportunities and tune IT to meet these objectives. This change makes it imperative for a CIO to gain expertise in areas beyond just technology.

The track on IT Leadership & Management will look into these often ignored knowledge areas, which form an essential element of every CIO’s job role.

Some of the areas this track will cover include:

• Leading the IT organisation.
• Communicating the value of IT.
• Aligning IT with business objectives.
• Calculating the RoI of enterprise-wide IT.
• Managing change/transition post an enterprise-wide implementation.

Informative sessions inc-lude:

CIO as a business strategist

As IT is becoming central to the success of an organisation, a CIO’s role is being transformed from a technologist to that of a strategist. In the process, a CIO has to understand the core business and how he can tune different technologies to meet these requirements.

The session will cover

• How the role of the CIO is changing from a technologist to a strategist.
• The business processes he needs to understand to make this transition.
• How his role will evolve as a communicator or IT visionary within an organisation.
• The possible areas that he may have to address.

Anatomy of an enterprise-wide IT project

Implementing an enterprise-wide IT project involves many phases: right from planning and budgeting, to winning management approval, to the actual project roll out, to post-implementation change management issues.

In this session, the speaker will speak about his experience with planning, budgeting and rolling out of an enterprise-wide IT project with a real-life example.

This session will cover:

• How to plan and budget for an enterprise-wide IT project.
• Issues involved with selecting the right application and getting mandatory management approvals.
• Managing costs and system integration issues.
• Post-implementation testing, audits and employee change management issues.

The RoI Question

CIOs are faced with the perennial question: How to calculate the success of an IT investment, Should a CIO look at the benefits in pure financial terms? Or should one look at the intangibles as well?

In this session, the speaker talks about his experience with calculating RoI on IT investments.

This session will cover:

• The right approach to measuring the success of an IT investment.
• Can IT investments be justified purely in financial terms (RoI) or should one consider the intangibles?
• Methodologies used to calculate RoI.
• Should functional heads play a role in measuring IT success.

Aligning IT with business objectives

This session would give the participants a chance to hear the views of eminent panelists who are experts in the field. On this panel discussion, prominent CIOs from different industry verticals will discuss the various approaches to aligning IT with business objectives.

The panel discussion will touch upon the following areas:

• Why the need to align IT with business should be a top priority among corporate India.
• The strategies CIOs need to adopt to align IT with business objectives.
• The level of knowledge CIOs need to have about the business domain to achieve this.

Track 3 - IT Infrastructure Management

Managing IT infrastructure has become more complex than ever. A CIO today is responsible for delivering and maintaining the infrastructure and services relied upon by your business to compete effectively and efficiently. Keeping your business up and running smoothly requires an in-depth understanding of how IT impacts business. It is also critical to set appropriate expectations across the enterprise about the type and quality of IT services users will receive.

The sessions on infrastructure management will dwell into the nuances associated with managing availability and performance of your IT infrastructure.

Some of the areas this track will cover are:

• Managing your IT infrastructure to ensure availability and performance.
• Choosing IT service management as an approach to managing your IT infrastructure, and ultimately, business expectations.
• Adaptive infrastructure management—the future of infrastructure management.

Track 4 - Business Continuity

Ensuring business continuity (BC) in the event of system downtime is a critical issue for all CIOs, especially when the core business processes revolve around IT. Most companies associate BC with data availability—in short, storage. Though data availability forms an important part of any BC plan, there are other vital areas like power and information security that needs to be addressed to ensure continuance. The track on business continuity explores the strategic and technological aspects of ensuring 24x7x365 day availability of your business-critical systems.

Some of the areas this track will cover are:

• Understanding the impact of disaster and identifying the risk components.
• Implementing safeguards and fail-over mechanisms.

Addressing IT infrastructure issues like power management, disaster recovery and information security

Theme pavilions

Apart from an opportunity to meet counterparts from various other sectors and sharing concerns, Technology Senate will also give every CIO an opportunity to view live technology demonstrations. This will prove to be very fruitful in the sense that CIOs can leverage on the ideas demonstrated by others and be a part of a unique knowledge-sharing platform. It is in these live demonstrations that challenges, specific to various verticals, come to light. This forum is sure to remind you of student days when you sat side-by-side with your peers to crack that critical arithmetic problem.

In a nutshell, Technology Senate is an opportunity to meet various vendors, a chance to rub shoulders with CIOs of various sectors, taking tips from companies who will be awarded for their phenomenal work in the field of IT. Last but not the least, a couple of days away from routine office work!