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. 

Being a 115 year old organization, there were too many processes and systems that were built over a period of time. These processes were layered over each other and were too complex. We wanted to consolidate our disparate HR systems onto a single platform, standardize HR processes and streamline enterprise data collection across our group companies. Both HR and IT were equally accountable to make this happen. 

I believe that every leader including the CIO needs to empower, delegate and let go of tasks and focus on outcomes. In the end what matters are results ! Manage time and don't live by the clock. Your becoming indispensable to the company is bad for you and the company. It will stunt your growth opportunities and also give you no time. 

Cloud or no cloud, it is time for the CIO to morph a little bit from being a technology-focused professional to someone who can provide business value. It would be good if the CIO becomes more aware of the business domain he operates in, and participates a lot more in business discussions. It is also important for him to interact with the customers and the sales force to get a better understanding of the ground realities of business. 

It's often hard for CIOs to find the right people with the perfect skills and temperament to do all the hard things that have to be done to keep your business processes rolling along.Recruiting is expensive time consuming, depending on the qualifications that you are seeking in your new hires. 

Most firms just throw their interns into the deep end and have them either sink or swim. We are taking the more humane approach in our internship program. The lesson I learned during my interaction with them was to not write them off. In fact, as CIOs we should listen to them. They have not been tainted by corporate politics or turned into status quo zombies. They might have fresh ideas that can improve the bottom line of an organization. Think Facebook... 

Defining the scope of the problem, setting targets, enabling team culture and reviewing progress are among the seven 'rules' may be customized and used by any manager in setting up and managing an effective team to achieve a set of specific goals in an organizational environment. 

The role of the CIO has evolved tremendously over the years. Today, I have to also think like a CFO, an HR Head and the CEO several times during the day. I have to change my shoes with their shoes a dozen times and feel how it feels to be in their roles. Unless I do that, I am not in a position to take a top down view of the way the company is moving. 

CIOs and CMOs - if you want your love to move from the 'puppy love' stage of infatuation to a real, long term, love - make sure you work on the soft-skills. Work on the trust between yourselves and your teams. Work on roles and responsibilities. Work on the core competencies of each team. 

CIOs are uniquely placed to drive knowledge management (KM) because they understand both processes and technology. KM should be driven as a strategy for cultural change, which involves integrating contents available across the organization rather than just launching a portal to capture knowledge where you expect people to upload, update or download content.