Anil Nama
CIO - CtrlS Datacenters

Key priorities for 2021
‘Digital Culture’ is the key to transforming organizations today. Information Technology (IT) is an integral part of the business models today. Ola, Flipkart, Amazon, Paytm, Big Basket are organizations where technology is an integral part of business.

Therefore, CIOs have a larger responsibility of introducing, integration technology with the evolving model of their respective companies. They are the initiators of the ‘digital mandate’, obtain the necessary nod from the CEO / CFO and the board to roll-out the digital initiatives.

Such digital initiatives led by CIOs should create value for the organization, optimize costs, gain speed-to-market, customer delight and competitive advantage. According to me, the ‘Digital Mandate’ and key priorities for CIOs for 2021 would be security, process automation, modernization of applications, workplace modernization, integrating AI / ML as a part of the business DNA, introduction of customer facing applications (example: mobile apps), ensuring business continuity and risk management.

Adopting Work-From Anywhere
COVID-19 has accelerated digitization of workplaces. Today, majority of the companies have embraced work-from-home (or) work-from-anywhere models and technology has played a key role in enabling the same. ‘Digital Workplaces’ have arrived and will stay here.

As a CIO, it is our responsibility to ensure all applications are made available remotely and securely to employees without compromising data – all elements such as desktop-as-a-service, virtual private network (VPN), collaboration and conferencing tools, laptops and desktops, network devices, internet bandwidth played a key role in enabling the digital workplaces during COVID-19 pandemic.

Redesigning IT & Security strategy
According to an industry survey about 4,000 data breaches occurred since the world was hit by COVID-19 pandemic compromising sensitive information. Security threats will continue to persist today and tomorrow.

Such threats were prevalent yesterday too. Hence, Security threats will be a constant. It is important for IT leaders CIOs / CISOs to take pro-active measures to protect the critical organizational data – they should not compromise on cost when it comes to security threats.

Every company should invest liberally on security tools and technologies – lest, they may have to pay a bigger price due to non-compliance, business loss, brand erosion and loss of stock value and perhaps the IT Leader may have to pay a heavy price in case of any major breach. We have always been pro-active as far as our organizational security practice is concerned.