In the technology domain the most trending debate making rounds is about which department of an organization consumes most of IT's time and budget? There is a storm brewing in business. Marketing sees IT as full of propeller-heads and is using a lot of IT today. Is this trend growing? We asked in a survey and it proves that marketing's influence over IT is growing.  

Technology evolution creates many opportunities and challenges for IT departments and CIOs. The pace of change in recent times has been exponential with obsolescence setting in faster than the adoption curve maturity. IT forces the CIOs to evolve or perish. Are you moving with time or making an Early Retirement Plan (ERP)? 

Innovation is a much used term in enterprise meeting rooms. Most of the time dramatic improvements get termed as innovations, which is quiet sad. Innovations, unlike dramatic changes, significantly alter lifestyles, make certain parts of the ecosystem redundant and put someone or something out of business or commission. Are we sure, what we are doing is INNOVATION? 

There are five habits of highly secure organizations, according to Ben Rothke of Wyndham Worldwide. These include, among others, investing in people, not products. A company that has great talent using open source products will be more secure than a company that spends millions on proprietary tools but doesn't intrinsically know how to use them.  

While taking part in organizational, board-level politics could be a non-desirable, unnerving task, but understand what all you can miss by not doing it. Most vital decisions are made at the board-level. If you don't stay alongside, where will you have the knowledge, the influence to serve the organization's business with the help of IT? I would vouch for a better future for CIOs if they indulge in this game. 

It is the age-old tussle between the old and the new. Do old CIOs create hurdles when it comes to innovation and new technology adoption by resisting change or do new CIOs rush through things to bring about change without thinking much about the consequences? While experience does matter a lot, the answer probably lies somewhere in the middle. What's your take on this?  

The CIO will need to undergo a huge shift in responsibility to assume the role of Chief Digital Officer. This is the time to separate the boys from the men. It will require a complete makeover of the IT department to make this work. And it will finally mean that the CIO will have to step up to the plate and at long last truly assume the role of Chief 'Information' Officer. 

The open acknowledgement of team work towards success ensures that producers and consumers do not see each other that way; rather they work to create an ecosystem that motivates progress. Having been part of a few matrix structures, I believe that finally the culture of the company (read CEO/Head) will determine success. 

In today's business context there are many challenges for a CIO to stay relevant, stay in hunt and be always respected in an enterprise. We don't even realize what the businesses are thinking about the technology. If a CIO just focuses on cost, we are blamed for Commoditization of IT. To break this jinx and to make CIO as one of the most vital person in an organization, I suggest a Mantra - the 1001-day plan.  

I often tell my team that 20 percent of their time in office should be used in speaking with the internal customers--right from the shop floor to the marketing and finance departments. Understand how they work, what their challenges are, and how IT can make things easy and effective for them. One cannot sit in an ivory tower and provide services to the business.