Avinash Velhal
RBU Growing Markets, IT & Process - Atos Global IT Solutions and Services

Responsibilities of the CIO
CIOs have always focused on technology and process. The current virtual organisations now demand CIOs to be cultural change agents focusing on people issues which have become critical due to individual isolated remote working. The old concepts of NOC and peremeterised IT support are no longer viable and new support structures and policies are to be integrated. CIOs are the new “Cultural Integration Officers” in addition to all other hats worn by them.

Key priorities for 2021
CIOs have been asked to adopt the digital technologies internally first, demonstrate business impact so that this can be shown as proof of concept in front of clients. The current situation requires realigning the IT architecture with market realities to exploit the digital opportunities. CIOs are now more integral to business operations and its outcomes. The need of the hour is to rearchitect the IT landscape to align with the revised realities of business in this post pandemic era. To strengthen the processes in terms of security and compliance and leverage them to optimise business outcomes in anywhere workplace environment.

Adopting Work From Anywhere
Anywhere workplace is the crucial component of all businesses. Policy changes related to asset provision and returning of assets to deliver and collect them has become critical for remote onboarding provisioning of resources; digitalisation of employee self-services especially local expense claims process, leave management etc. Providing a seamless collaboration and knowledge platform through MS Teams, SharePoint, Yammer O365 has been a big differentiation to provide any device anywhere workplace.  Enabling the Knowledge management and collaboration tools of the organisation are of paramount importance in the current virtual business environment to increase customer intimacy and satisfaction.

Redesigning IT & Security strategy
The current context requires a re-architecture of the IT landscape focusing on remote working and provisioning, securing the information security aspects. Investing in new security solutions to be effective in this borderless IT environment. Policy changes while adopting new tools and technologies considering all dimensions of security threats considering existing revised landscape and working environments is a new challenge. Building up the knowledge management and collaboration environment with robust communities and content to achieve virtual teams delivering high customer satisfaction is essential.