CIOIN

Atul Jayawant

Group CIO, Aditya Birla

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Atul Jayawant is Group CIO, Aditya Birla Group.

In most organizations, IT is perceived to be less critical to business than other functions like marketing or HR. You never hear people talking about need to align HR or marketing with the business for instance. This perception stemmed from a time when IT was staffed by 'geeks' writing 'code' in 'EDP' departments tucked away in company basement. But, things have a come a long way since then, with IT penetrating every aspect of the business today. What, however, as not changed are the parameters by which businesses judge the value of IT.

This has made some people defensive about IT being a support function. But what matters is the value IT or any function brings to the table. We should focus on this rather than playing around with the semantics of being a 'support' versus being an 'enabler' or 'driver' to the business. IT is a support function, so what?  
An organization is like a football team: it has various positions including forward, mid-field and defense. And then there are off-field positions that play an equally important role in winning, like the coach. In business, IT's role might be off-field but it isn't any less critical in making the business win.

The challenge to the CIO today is what it's always been: to make the business win. At Aditya Birla, IT is a part of the business team and is a party to both success and failure. There is no glory for IT if the business doesn't achieve its goals.

Yet, how many of us engage with our customers or attend our company's AGM? What proportion of our time is spent with internal customers? Do we understand our business' drivers and its competitive context? What impact does IT have on business results?

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The misconceptions around IT will change only when IT departments start questioning their role in the business and focus on a single goal: to make the business win.

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CIOs are not geeks who speak a language no one understands. They are top-level executives, many sporting management degrees. It is the thinking and execution capability of CIOs and their ability to leverage HR, marketing, or finance in harmony with IT to respond to business challenges that make them valuable businesses professionals.

Take for instance how we've invested in a world-class ERP for our human resources. We have 30,000 managers spread across 35 countries and they use the system extensively. No doubt this is good IT story; but it's the business result it has achieved that makes it a great story.  

The misconceptions around IT will change only when IT departments start questioning their role in the business and focus on a single goal: to make the business win.