CIOIN

V.V.R. Babu

Group CIO, ITC

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There’s no doubt that IT has shifted from being a back-office operation to one that actively supports business growth and transforms enterprises. And new technologies like mobility, advanced analytics, and social media are extending IT's footprint beyond organizational boundaries into the enterprise' extended ecosystem.
Correspondingly, investments in IT, too, have increased drastically over the last few years. Today, the average annual IT budget of Indian organizations is between one to two percent of overall revenue.  That means for large enterprises, IT budgets can run into hundreds of crores.  Hence, for IT to be efficient, responsive and proactive, it should be supported by an effective and well-managed governance process.
And that starts with laying out organizational structures, systems, policies, and processes. To be able to do that, CIOs must re-organize relevant business stakeholders into an apex body for IT decision-making to ensure business’ ownership of IT initiatives. But this should be supplemented with a framework to measure business benefits from IT investments and reported to the highest executive level of the company.
Further, technology selection should be made by a broad-based committee that will ensure company-wide standardization and the compatibility of IT products, technologies, and services. This will eliminate or limit the chances of making wrong technology choices or have obsolescence that can adversely impact an organization.
That brings me to the sensitive subject of security. An information security team—headed by a CISO—should be responsible for information loss due to unauthorized access, interception or disclosure. And CIOs should set up internal controls like the segregation of duties, exception reporting, and the use of automated alerts for escalation.
Now that IT has graduated from keeping the lights on to enabling growth, I believe that CIOs’ role and responsibility is to help organizations achieve that. And putting relevant management and governance processes in place in an effective and strong IT policy—that has enterprise-wide acceptance—is one way of getting closer to that goal.

"For IT to be efficient, responsive and proactive, it should be supported by an effective and well-managed governance process."