CIO YearAhead’10: Forging IT/Business Strategies for 2010

It’s the topic of discussion in every meeting and every pitch. While nobody has access to a crystal ball to gauge what the next operational year is going to look like, 30 senior professionals comprising of business-technology leaders gathered in the Main Session of the CIO YearAhead’10: Roundtables. Moderated by Dr. Aamir Matin, Country Manager Cisco Systems and Shahida Saleem, Chairperson for the Standing Committee on IT at the FPCCI, the discussion revolved around identifying some organizational challenges, some situational problems, whether technology really drives business, wrapping up with what the the rest of this year looks like.

While we’ll share editorial pieces and extracts from the event through the course of the next several days, it’s safe to understand that the strategies, frameworks, challenges, issues that are experienced by the IT heads within their organizations are the same strategies, frameworks, challenges and issues that can perhaps be applied to business challenges that all businesses face, regardless of whether they are IT buyers or consumers. There is no doubt that companies have the biggest challenge of “doing more with less”.

Generally speaking, businesses grow when they increase capacity and operational efficiency. Pakistan has a population of almost 170million people – the market potential is undoubtedly huge. A technology strategy, when aligned with the business and growth strategy, in an ideal scenario at least, will enable companies to follow the “do more with less” mandate.

But how much of an influence do the technology leaders in the organizations have with Board, is the question that overtook the discussion. This led to another round of chatter that revolved around how much technology integration actually drives the business. Other issues that stood out included topics of capacity building, alliances with mainstream and trade media, the need for innovation to drive greater ROI, amongst others. There was, of course, a general consensus that technology cannot be looked at in isolation. Instead, knowledge-sharing opportunities will drive the possibility of collaborative ventures and overall growth.

The moderators identified challenges and worked the panelists to develop suggested roadmaps which could be addressed over the course of the next one year. These challenges and strategies, along with other editorial pieces will be published online here, with a final report in the next print edition of the magazine.

Post lunch sessions included 3 simultaneous sessions which were: Session 2 on Hardware/System Integration moderated by Ashar Zaidi, Country Manager of Intel; Session 3 on IT Security as moderated by Mahir Mohsin Sheikh, CEO Trillium Information Security Solutions; and Session 4 on Managed Services, as moderated by Kashif Aziz, Head of Services at CDC Tech. Each session had approximately 7 participants and each moderator had the task of engaging with IT and Business leaders in their sessions in assessing what some of the painpoints were for those topical areas, and recommend ways in which those issues can be resolved. Once again, these session extracts and editorial pieces will be published online.

Here’s a thought as I sign out – It is incredibly important to keep the discussion and knowledge-share alive. One panel discussion or a 3-hour brainstorming session will not result in anything tangible. The discussion that can continue online including those professionals and business leaders who were unable to join us, will actually be where a lot of very practical issues that will be raised.. We look forward to your interaction.