Eminent CIO's Of India 2026

Optimizing Investments, Building Trust, Enabling AI

 

Bharat B Anand
Group Chief Information & Technology Officer - Contec Global

 

Building a future-ready enterprise requires more than adopting new technologies. It requires a framework that aligns investments, governance, security, and workforce transformation with strategic business goals. This approach enables organizations to scale efficiently, innovate responsibly, and create lasting value.

 

PAKB: Optimizing IT Investments   
This is one of the challenging aspects with different & differentiating asks, however, to achieve we have established PAKB (Project Approval Kill Board) that helps differentiating IT investments into Run (stability & compliance), Grow (efficiency & margin) and Transform (new revenue & differentiation). The intent is in ensuring every dollar delivers measurable business impact while strengthening reliability, security, and scalability.

 

IT STRATEGY: A Growth Multiplier
We are working to have an IT strategy that act as a growth multiplier for the business while aligning with national priorities like Digital India, data sovereignty, cybersecurity, and sustainability—ensuring we scale responsibly, compliantly, and competitively while meeting socio, agility, talent mentoring and sustainability and Green IT needs too.

 

IT GOVERNANCE: Value-driven Framework
We have repositioned IT governance from a control mechanism to a value-driven framework that directly links technology investments to EBITDA, cost efficiency, and risk reduction—delivering measurable business outcomes. And to accomplish above we are working using following pillars:

◆  Value-Linked Governance aka Business First approach
◆  Standardization & Operating Model Discipline aka group-wide governance
◆  Data-Driven Decision-Making aka as a Decision Support System (DSS)
◆  Risk & Compliance as Enablers & Not Bottlenecks
◆  Accountability Through Governance & Clear Ownership

 

THE VIRTUES OF TRUST
Security, Privacy and Digital inclusion are three virtues that we have embodied in our everyday action i.e, be it embedding security and privacy by design or expanding digital access or Governance & Metrics Framework. The idea is that we protect the enterprise while earn customer trust that helps broader growth.

 

BUILDING THE AI-NATIVE ENTERPRISE
We have adopted a three-layer approach i.e. skills, operating model, and culture —so that AI is embedded into everyday work, not treated as a side initiative. To achieve, we are working to transform the workforce from being AI-aware to AI-native by embedding AI into roles, workflows, and culture—thus helping deliver measurable productivity gains while ensuring responsible and scalable adoption.