This post is about discussing the very real Build vs. Buy problem many CISOs are running into. Whether it's for lack of available talent, time, or simply priorities, CISOs have to make this decision nearly every day so this post discusses some of those choices, their consequence and rationale. 

There's a lot to learn from people around us. Today's blog is about a different kind of learning. Parvinder Singh, Corporate VP, Head IT Services and Technical Control at Max Life Insurance Company ran the full Mumbai Marathon and stood 162nd among the 4000 runners who completed it. He focused on the aim, gathered the strength and ran to complete it. Join me in congratulating his success which is inspiring for all of us.  

Most organizations who engage employees effectively, will find a greater appreciation coming their way. CIOs have a huge role to play here. They can be the people who can drive the ground rules of connected enterprise, not as an order taker but as a direction setter. Can a CIO stand up and hold their own when some of the ground rules come under pressure from HR, Finance, Legal and Brand? 

One of the problems that I've always noticed in the world of IT is that we are very focused on 'sameness'. This comes partly from processes and security but also from the personalities that are drawn to IT. Is 2013 going to be another year of the same? Are you going to end the year with the same problems you started with? Let's hope not. 

Strategic discussions can only succeed when both sides have a complete agreement on the process and the outcomes. For the CIO to make progress, it is imperative to get the message across the layers of the functions which are impacted directly or indirectly. Any gaps here will lead to unaligned objectives. CIOs should manage the process such that they are able to create ownership towards the meeting of objectives. 

The introduction of the new year brings new challenges and new technologies to propel your business to the next level if used properly. Here is a list of enterprise software trends and technologies around ERP, mobile, big data, Cloud/SaaS and others. These predictions and trends should play out over the rest of the year not only within the enterprise space but mostly within the ERP software market. 

A lack of understanding, organizational politics, the debate around capex vs opex and conflict of interests are some of the reasons that hamper cloud adoption. My aim is to ignite a healthy debate on the issue. I request IT chiefs to take cloud to the next level in 2013; so that the next time we have coffee together, we talk about "cloud broker architecture" and not "cloud adoption". 

Once a solution is purchased, no CIO wants to waste time and money integrating the IT infrastructure with that particular solution. The focus shifts to providing service to the business rather than rebuilding their IT infrastructure time and again. The repetitive claim of "end-to-end service" made by almost all service providers must ensure that a solution works right from the word go. 

"How technical are you?" This common challenge can turn into a sore spot for the CIO today. It's inevitable (and actually desirable), you see: as you move up to executive rank, you lose your day-to-day involvement in the actual nuts-and-bolts implementation of technical details. Many executives respond by essentially abandoning all direct personal engagement with technology. But to do so across the board is a mistake. 

Some 20 days ago, I began a discussion on one of my social groups by asking the member CIOs: What would be that one key thing they'll be compelled to look at in 2013? I quite agree with a CIO, who believes that instead of running to achieve an all-round success and multiple accomplishments, we should focus on a few areas that will make or break business. How are you preparing for 2013? 

We all see favorite projects of CEOs and other CXOs faltering after a great pomp and show. They take away a lot of energy, budgets and resources to see through to fruition though rarely anyone wants to challenge the need or the relevance at that time. The emperor's new clothes will always be a parable with learning for everyone. 

The banking sector is a highly regulated one. If one looks at the number of compliances that the IT team has to follow, the list is fairly long. SVC Bank has invested in infrastructure to offer ATM sharing services to smaller cooperative banks. This means we have to adhere to a lot of norms set by the regulator because of our dual role as the payment and settlement agency.  

It is high time organizations look beyond the obvious while searching for reasons behind employee exits. The answer lies in taking proactive steps to address employee concerns. I urge business leaders to spend some time reading and analysing exit interview forms. In the long run, this could help them retain their start performers. In today's technology-driven world, we should not lose the human touch.  

In its 2013 Threats Predictions report, McAfee Labs states that cybercriminals will receive an increase in requests for their hacking services. It predicts that Citadel will become the Trojan of choice for cybercriminals. Also, the number of suspicious outfits claiming to sell zero-day attacks or the sale of spying services reserved for the sole use of governments or secret services will grow. 

Many companies are rolling out initiatives that are aimed at increasing collaboration among employees, improving efficiency and increasing productivity. But is this unified communication drive yielding the desired results? Collaboration and communication is more about changing mindset rather than technology. However, I feel that human touch is irreplaceable and no technology can ever substitute it. 

One of the real drivers of innovation in any organization is the ability to try new things without the fear that you'll get fired for a mistake. Creating an engaging and safe environment for experimentation is the quickest way to drive innovative ideas. Most IT groups are not known for their ability to 'experiment' with new ideas. Instead of controlling experiments, open things up. 

Insurance is a highly regulated sector. However, the regulations have prompted us to think beyond the ordinary. In our scenario, the regulator has come out with a lot of standardization about the products that we can offer to our customers. Hence, from both the business and the IT perspective, it becomes important for us to create avenues by which we can service our customers innovatively. 

Striking a delicate balance and managing a growing set of responsibilities have always been the part and parcel of a CIO's role. It is a job that is highly scrutinized. For the CIO, the journey has been more difficult because he has had to establish his relevance within the organization, time and again. At the same time, absorb a lot of technology changes.  

Not so long ago, India was the pivot of attention not only as an Asian Tiger but also as the world's most promising consumer country. Most developed nations were eying us as one of the next potential growth destinations. Suddenly, it has all changed. From a healthy, stable and growth-oriented economy, we are being counted as sluggish, unstable and uncertain. This could have severe implications for the future. 

IT departments will need to overcome three security hurdles as employees increasingly use applications and devices for work that were initially designed for personal use. Policies and tools put in place to deal with mobile devices offering consumer-grade security must be revised to deal with the devices that are under the control of the private users. 

It's the time of the year when I act like a 10-year-old, as I draw up a wish list, hoping Santa will deliver. As a CIO, I would love any kind of divine intervention as I deal with various issues. Among other things, I wish to have the ability to quickly unlearn and sit in a discussion without carrying the burden of having to accept or reject everything being said. 

Good storytelling is a hallmark of effective leadership. It's a medium that allows leaders to move others. It also lets others know who the leader is. How the leader thinks and feels. If anything, I think this has probably become too important. If you're a great storyteller, you have more success than warranted, and if you're a lousy storyteller you may never get to first base. 

One of the key responsibilities of a CIO is to deliver business value through effective use of technology. This involves evaluating solutions from various partners to choose the most appropriate one that would align well with the business objectives. However, post the partner selection process, a CIO may find himself being followed by a 'losing' partner to justify his decision. How should he handle such a situation? 

A competency-based framework is necessary for better management and optimization of IT team. We have to re-imagine the future of IT, redefine the job roles and create competencies required for such roles. The training and development should be restructured to enable IT competencies for better alignment of people with roles for greater value realization. Here are a few competencies that are a must for CIOs. 

A frustrated CIO once commented, where do I cut without impacting service levels? I cannot go short on licenses, nor on bandwidth, and service providers want inflationary increase, AMC needs to be paid, travel and training are already down; do I go to the CEO, or CFO, or better the Board with a begging bowl? The remark portrays the helplessness felt by many. Is there a way out? 

The Shamrao Vithal Co-operative Bank has developed banking applications in-house which it offers to smaller co-operative banks who lack the wherewithal to invest in technology. We are now offering all applications including statutory and regulatory functionality that helps them adhere to compliance norms. Besides this, we also provide cloud computing to 42 smaller co-operative banks, so that they can work seamlessly. 

Large Indian companies across verticals are evaluating ways to make sense of massive amounts of data captured by their IT systems Apart from exploring untapped revenue opportunities, firms are also looking at the technology to cut costs and boost profit. However, there remain some key challenges that need to be tackled. 

The Marketing Technology Office (MTO) is a great idea, if executed correctly. This type of office will allow the marketing team to focus on technology while allowing the IT team to focus on operating said technology. An MTO that steps out in front and leads while working hand-in-hand with IT will be amazing. The MTO that tries to lead without IT will be a waste of money and time. 

In less than a month, this is my second out-of-turn blog post. Today, I am proud to write yet another post about a great friend who has broken the national barriers and has decided to go global. Join me in congratulating Amrita Gangotra (formerly Director of IT & CIO Bharti Airtel South Asia) who decided to take up a global role with Vodafone in the UK.  

The partnership between IT and Marketing has to be a strong one. The marketing team must drive requirements and vision. The IT group must drive the technological integration, security and operations. The Marketing Technology office, however, is a fad unless both IT and Marketing groups can start with a proper plan and teamwork. Then you've got a chance at making marketing technology office a long-term part of the organization. 

In my new role as the CEO of BSE, my primary focus will be to provide fair, transparent, efficient and cost-effective market for investors. Gaining market share is also high on our agenda. There is immediate need to create flexibility in our frameworks so that we can generate new products, market them and distinguish ourselves from competition. The pursuit for speed should be in conjunction with flexibility. 

Having run his company without a CIO for last 14 years, an entrepreneur CEO friend has decided to recruit one now. Seeking my help on this front, he shared with me a Job Description (JD) that he himself wrote. It is a CEO's expectation from his CIO. Tick mark against the seven prerequisites and see where you stand. Do you fit into this role? If yes, you are the C.I.O. 

I reached out to 12 senior CISOs before I penned this blog post and everyone thought that it was a good idea and some called it innovation. I was actually a bit miffed. I reminded them, that this had always been an expectation from their chair, but all that one got was policies and policing. CISOs should help employees conduct their business in a safe and secure environment.  

When one acquires responsibility of one function and takes side with the other business units, the equation changes dramatically for good. You will not be seen as someone just defending your own territory. By doing so, the other business heads become more respectful to the CIO and his team. 

As a leader, providing a sense of meaning to your employees is arguably your most important role. Assign projects, no matter how small. Praise individual employees as often as you can. Extend responsibility, since implicit in responsibility is trust and regard. Help employees understand their place in a larger effort that transcends procedures, tasks, and measurable outcomes.  

A CIO's actions and conduct should speak more than words and that's where the real building blocks of CIO branding take shape. A CIO has to deliver that extra bit and also ensure this delivery is consistent, not temporary; certainly not limited to technology related areas but extends into areas that directly impact business. 

When your business depends on IT outsourcing, it's imperative that you understand how to derive optimal value from your vendor contract. It's time to put an end to all the uncertainties in your outsourcing contracts. Take a collaborative approach to begin finding the answers you need because once you do, you'll discover that when it comes to managing IT outsourcing vendors, knowledge is power. 

This is in continuation with my earlier post that marked the first 30 days of my first 90-day journey in a new group. My second set of 30 days at InterGlobe Group as the Group CIO, have given me the confidence to bat on the front foot for the time being. Having gone through the induction and the learning process on the key businesses, it was time to get to know the people better. 

If the CIO community gets together as a group of consultants, can it be a potent competition to the 'Big Four' consultants' IT advisory group? I am sure, we'll add value in IT consulting, given the fact that we have always been in the thick of things, understand how the Big Four consultants work, know what the corporations need and how they want to tackle their problems. Any takers? 

The worst thing that can happen to a CISO is to get trapped in the ROI Death Spiral; when you have show the ROI before you spend money. The only solution is to figure out how to add value, make your company better, stronger, faster. That's the only way out of the trap your CFO has built for people that he thinks aren't adding value and delivering on promises.  

So goes the saying: 'The illiterates of the 21st century won't be the ones who do not know how to read or write but the ones who can't learn, unlearn and relearn.' The time is right for the CIO and CMO to set out on a journey to take their organizations to new heights. They should apprise themselves of the emerging trends to address organizational challenges more effectively. 

Grooming Business Analysts to the point where they start delivering value is a long process. In environments that are friendly and embracing, the analysts could be productive in their second year. In large complex environments, sometimes it takes 3 - 4 years to deliver value. Grooming program is the key to success. The analysts should spend at least 6 to 8 weeks in each of the key departments. 

Isn't helping in process re-engineering and transforming an organization is what a consultant is supposed to do? So why can a CIO not become an internal consultant? All one needs is to be an extrovert, shift focus from technology to business, scout for opportunities and deliver in areas beyond IT. In this blog let me talk about how a CIO can become an excellent Internal Consultant.  

Now that DDoS attackers' motivations have become more diverse, going beyond the pursuit of blackmailing or illicit financial gain; unfair business advantage, ideological activism and political activism now drive these types of attacks. Organizations should have more proactive process and alternative strategies in place, apart from relying on vendors to save them from these kinds of attacks. 

This was back in the year 1995 at a manufacturing plant when the good old PC was struggling to gain recognition. The IT department, of which I was a part, helped bring in transparency and accountability by roping in senior management to use computers. Though I am not a great advocate of top down change, in this case, the first successful change was driven from the top. 

Many CIOs still have to rise up in stature to occupy a position of significance in their organizations, have the privilege of being at the 'C' level or be members of the board. There are exceptions, of course, but others may have a major task at hand to shore up their fortunes. The question is: Whether the technology head has just inherited the position of the CIO or has he earned it? 

Though this question may seem irrelevant to IT leaders, non-IT executives may tend to agree. For them, IT still looks like a black box. The investments are visible, but the benefits are not. Either the benefits are not directly measurable or if attempted they are based on subjective judgment and hence suspect.  

Many large companies choose to keep quiet, and do not notify either the agencies or customers when their IT systems are compromised. They do not want to showcase themselves as vulnerable, and they have a reputation that needs to be preserved. Will the possible introduction of mandatory data breach notification laws change this reticent behaviour? 

Rogue IT is permeating the organization through desktops, laptops, and tablets. Rogue IT is viral, unyielding, and for the most part unstoppable. Rogue IT is the name given to the informal, adhoc software and electronic devices brought by employees into their workplace. So as the CIO what do you do - embrace it, prepare for it, or try to control and ban it from your organization? 

What will your next priority project be for security? How about you look inward, and figure out how to maximize last year's investments (or the previous years?) and surprise your management by telling them instead of chasing the new shiny thing you're going to reinvest time in the stuff you already own. 

For the past 30-plus years, technology has tortured us. It's always too little, too late, and costs too much. In the anticipation and excitement of the new, it's easy to forget the past. Don't. Never forgive. Never forget. Make sure the gain is worth the pain. Wait to upgrade existing technology until you can hardly stand it. 

As community developers we have been debating, talking, writing volumes about CIO becoming a CEO and how. Today we have a live example in front of us and we all should be proud of it. Join me in congratulating Ashish Chauhan who today assumes charge as the Managing Director and CEO of Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), one of Asia's premier stock exchange organization.  

Succession planning has been talked a lot as a subject of importance in companies and technology departments for years. However, there have not been many instances where CIOs have made efforts to prepare a well chartered succession plan. At Mahindra Finance, we have ensured through our various initiatives to nurture our IT workforce and make them ready for the next level. 

Social media entrepreneurs are butting into every aspect of life. Like it or not. Tweets from the street, while at home or from the toilet, all have found their way into apps leveraging the context from the internet of things to bring to us some extremely unique, radical and totally wacky apps and connected devices. Sharing your data on the internet just went a bit beyond the wild and wacky. 

IT has a big role to play in the healthcare system to improve the quality and efficiency of operations and delivery. These, along with patient safety, are the key drivers for IT investment in the healthcare setup. A number of IT initiatives, such as the automation of over 1,000 processes, at Manipal Hospitals have helped us make information available online for stakeholders and reduce turnaround time for patients. 

Lately there has been a lot of publicity and visibility on the fact that CIOs are being or going to be measured on business metrics, many of which they do not control or influence directly or indirectly. As opposed to the traditional ways of measuring CIO's performance, should s/he be measured on revenue, profitability, customer acquisition or retention, product availability? 

For most organizations, the capacity to take challenge related to IT transformation seems out of reach. Many Indian enterprises are still struggling to keep up with everyday operational challenges and nothing else takes priority. Mostly, the IT organizations are found in reactive mode to keep the infrastructure going. But is doing nothing about the future-readiness an option? 

The monolithic "plan, deliver, run" IT organization that delivers all things IT to all departments has gone the way of the dinosaur. Today, CIOs are appointing business-relationship executives to manage the partnership between IT and most major departments. CIOs should hire echnologists who can be effective members of the marketing organization. 

Indian authorities have called private and government bodies to synergize their efforts to prevent cyber attacks. The government will set up a joint working group on cyber security. Without doubt, this initiative from the Centre is a welcome move. However, the larger concern is transparency in information sharing.  

We created a demand for business users to use IT services and applications. Through our Enterprise Architecture and Technology Solution, we clubbed the company's various data pools into a single entity. With a common platform, the solution can now cater to various types of software solutions from various service providers. The architecture has helped us gain reach and speed when application deployment really matters. 

Big Data is abuzz. It is now trending high on technology charts. Gartner's hype cycle for 2012 is extremely overwhelming. It has nearly 50 technologies represented on it. But surprisingly the analyst firm says it doesn't believe Big Data will be a 'hyped' term for long, which is a great news for the believers.  

The 'IT to User' drive is part of a change management exercise at Nova Medical Centers. It is aimed at hand-holding the IT users for some time before letting them use the solution on their own. So, instead of calling them for theoretical classes at the headquarters, we have set up a team that will go from one location to another and train them in real-time. 

The consensus among all the CIOs with whom I've spoken is that IT is oriented toward change and finance is all about consistency. Once something is locked down, finance is loath to change it. That may make for sound cost management, but it can be a barrier to innovation. Many CIOs say, the CFO can make IT less effective by overemphasizing the areas that support finance.  

Deployment readiness of application services providers is a concern in the journey towards cloud adoption. Cloud providers need to be clear on licensing policies. There is lack of transparency. Billing remains a concern and controls are not standardized. Exit strategy from the cloud is another challenge. In many cases, lack of standards hampers portability of data and applications between systems. 

Businesses in every industry need to take risks if they want to innovate, and there is always a chance for failure. With risk come uncertainty and the burden of costs. These factors are not in sync with business as usual where organizations have to streamline their operations, create predictable results and reduce unnecessary expenses. Do these factors limit the scope for a CIO to innovate? 

In 2010 an IBM survey, with 1,500 CEOs worldwide, revealed a disconcerting hole that close to 80% of them believed their environment would grow much more complex in the near future, but less than half of them thought their companies were well equipped to deal with this paradigm shift. Now totally out of the hype and well within reach of the users, Cloud Computing is 'help at hand' for those who couldn't catch the bus early in transforming their IT delivery models.  

With digital commerce, the business of selling has become a lot more interesting and exciting. New business opportunities are getting created with technology trends like business virtualization, Big Data and software such as personalization tool. These on one end would help predict consumer behavior, and on the other end support seamless processing of data, creating a holistic shopping experience. 

Succession planning is critical for every organization's long-term success. The unpleasant impact of not having a succession plan in place can be considerable. It can lead to productivity loss, weakness in financial performance and lack of strategic direction. For CIOs to avail new opportunities, they need to identify and groom their successors. 

Does the efficiency drive kill your ability to change at reasonable costs? Good ideas that are disruptive and transformational need the core processes to be uprooted and an invasive surgery done on the business operations to put an idea into action. To mitigate the risk of failure, one decides to prototype and pilot. The costs associated with such an implementation approach are quite taxing on organizational bandwidth, time and coffers. 

Developing a sound IT strategy is a key focus area for every CIO. For me, IT strategy must be aligned with business and should enhance credibility in the eyes of the clients. We do proof of concept within internal IT before taking it to the client. This works well as the proof of the pudding is in showing the clients actual implementation. 

To help technology achieve the status of a "differentiator", the immediate ask for CIOs is to fast track the technology transformation. This transformation should ensure that systems do not become a hindrance but are implemented and managed to transform business functions by being tightly aligned to business needs while ensuring operational efficiency.  

It's true that majority of the CIOs today are trying to avoid being classified as Technology CIO. As a result, the population of business and strategic CIOs is steadily growing. That is what gives them necessary edge in the profession. But here's a CIO who not only thinks out of the box but goes ahead to accomplish the impossible. Shall we call him Ultimate CIO? 

With Microsoft pioneering the Do Not Track feature in IE10, the marketing guys will have to work hard to make the digital advertising world and the CRM strategies effective. In this blog, I am not touching upon the ethics part of tracking a customer's behavior online, I am merely analyzing the challenges this will pose to the enterprises and the effect on technology strategies related to CRM.  

The new era of IT evolution will be the era of IT value creation for the business. If CIOs want to be part of the leadership teams, it is critical that they continuously engage with the business in this value creation exercise. It will also give them the opportunity to act differently in managing and controlling new areas of experimentation. 

Contrary to the popular perception that techies do not understand the human side of the organization, CIOs can provide a fresh dimension to employee engagement by creating an online platform for trading company shares in a virtual stock market hosted within the intranet. Future changes in organizations will be more "bottom up" rather than "top down". CIOs can enable businesses bring in transparency that can generate the much-needed trust. 

As social media perpetuates through the enterprise the question becomes "Has social media become too social?" The use of social media is now fairly common in enterprises that allow and encourage social media as either part of their online or customer service strategy. But have people gone overboard at work to detract from tasks and actual job responsibilities? 

As IT leaders, we must keep in mind that while the solutions are developed and implemented by technical experts, the end users are people with little or no knowledge of technology. So, we must ensure that the solutions are simple to use. At Nova Medical Centers, we have gone in for cloud-based hospital management system which is easy to use and has helped reduce the cost of infrastructure and maintenance. 

Financial institutions, especially banks, are realizing that social media can be a great communication channel to promote new schemes, listen to customers and collect feedback. Apart from using social media platform to promote and sell their products; communicate and connect with customers; the competition from non-financial institutions is also driving banks to get their social act in place. 

As a CIO, my effort has always been to try and create a rich culture of innovation and develop the innovative mindset of my team at Mphasis. I have tried to take the simplistic approach to innovation and our mantra is 'fewer actions' for our users. Innovation need not necessarily mean creating a new technology. It can also mean actions that can improve productivity and reduce cost.  

Even with the complete dissemination of the security culture, managing various certifications across multiple sites with a diverse workforce, is indeed a daunting task. At Aditya Birla Minacs, we designed an integrated compliance strategy based on our clients' contractual requirements, country specific regulations, industry best practice certifications and zero tolerance to information breaches. 

The CIO landscape is changing dramatically. It is important for the CIO today to contribute to the agility and growth of the business while providing cost efficiency in times of huge changes in market, technology and business dynamics. If you look closely to the role of the CIO , it is that of a leader who can help business grow by thinking more like a business leader rather than a technology leader.  

On my first day of work in the new organization, I gathered every bit of 19 years of my work experience in the banking and financial services domain, locked it firmly in a box and walked into my new company with butterflies in my stomach. This humbleness and humility of not knowing the domain has been such a great asset in my management arsenal. 

While external threats continue to multiply, insider threat is something that cannot be overlooked Animosity arising from a disgruntled employee can take a form which can severely damage a business. Experts believe that one common thread that organizations overlook is the exit process of an employee who has, or in the past had access to sensitive company data.  

To drive efficiency and deliver competitive advantage, CEOs of many companies are looking at innovation to play a major role. CIOs will have to support innovation through the right use of technology and improvisation of existing processes. As IT leaders, we need to take the responsibility of developing and executing end-to-end innovation processes. 

That's a scary question to ask yourself. But unless you do, your boss may decide to ask it himself. And that will be scarier by far. If you think you may be replaced, you might as well replace yourself (with your new-and-improved self) and get your boss thinking about how you are the answer to his prayers rather than the cause of his problems. 

Some say the cloud will make the CIO role and enterprise IT disappear. But smart CFOs understand that the cloud presents an opportunity to unlock IT value and gain competitive advantage. The best IT departments, the ones that learn the fastest and achieve the most, could turn around and offer the same service to other companies in your vertical, thereby creating a new line of business.  

As in-charge of their IT organizations, CIOs are the new-age intrapreneurs who walk the tight-rope to balance technology and business, while managing their department as if they were running their own business. But fostering a culture of intrapreneurship and innovation is equally important to develop second-rung leadership. 

A Turkish hacker group attacked the website of Domino's India a couple of days back, and got access to over 37,000 account details. As reported, the website was hacked using the SQL injection method and remote file inclusion, one of the most common methods for stealing private data from web databases. Some CISOs say companies should learn from this incident and take proactive steps to avoid such attacks.  

Business leaders in a majority of organizations, especially banks, accept that the role of IT has been critical in enhancing business competitiveness. For IT to be truly transformational, these leaders need to elevate the role of the CIO to a more strategic level. CIOs too will have to take more responsibility for innovation as opposed to merely running IT processes and systems. 

The CIO's role is changing as fast as technology. Now's the time for CFOs to decide how their CIOs can best help their businesses and to begin looking for the right people to play the part. Which CIO will be right for your company in the next five years? Do you have the talent on board that you can groom for one of the roles we've mentioned?  

In past few years, strong statements have been made by numerous surveys, studies and researches about CIO becoming obsolete, redundant or even extinct. Those remarks may not be true in the letter and spirit but the CIO's job, in its current form, is factually under tremendous pressure. In cases where the CIOs do not transform, they will have to quit in favor of better alternatives. 

The big question today companies must ask themselves, repeatedly, is how can they proactively engage their consumers to a point that they will become an integral part of products and services launches, and build up better businesses practices on a win-win scenario? The challenge is not in asking the right answers, although that's hard enough. It's following through with the answers. 

CIOs will find more challenging to deal with the business than IT. Internal IT challenges are limited in terms of doing more with less, looking for business solutions, employee grooming and retention. CIOs have to take a much broader role in the business, driving business transformation, innovating for competitive advantage and acting as strategic partners to the organization. 

I want to share a story with you. Its a story about how an approach to "incentivizing" professionals turned a highly functioning team into a team focused on 'checking boxes' and functioning as a group of individuals rather than a team. This is a true story...and happens more than most of us really want to admit. 

The CIO role spans and must influence all parts of an organization without directly controlling them. Today's trends -- global, mobile, data-driven virtual business -- increase the stakes and make CIO influence not only important for the CIO's personal success but for the success of the company as well. There are two main trends that are driving a shift in power in IT. 

Despite all the attention around data security, the risk of breaches is only getting worse, not only in terms of dollar costs, but also management attention and company reputation. A report from PwC finds that though companies have comprehensive security controls and privacy policies in place, many do not carry out adequate internal auditing to enforce them. 

The pitch was ready, the players were all geared, the teams had strategized, umpires were on the ground and finally the guard was taken. Howzat! Yes, this was the sound echoing all over the place that day. The CIOs of India organized the first CIOs Cricket Cup - an unheard of, unique, one of its kind initiative for CIOs on August 5, 2012 at the Expo Center Noida.  

Most of you must be familiar with Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED) and its inspiring talks world over. Over the years, TED has achieved widespread popularity across different segments of society. Recently I came across a wonderful blog on TED website. The blog showcases the collection of the Top 20 Most-Watched Talks.  

Indian CIOs are at the risk of losing business credibility if they do not improve their understanding of business technology (BT). This is the key finding from the Latest Report that John Brand and I just published. For this report, we surveyed 130 companies in India, using Forrester's BT Leadership Maturity Model.  

CIOs cannot avoid change management as they are at the forefront of process and technology. Managing change, that too amidst resistance and organizational politics, has never been an easy task. It required specialized skills to handle. Successful changes were those where the change endeavors has overcome the resistance or have circumvented it.