Dhananjay Chandrashekhar Rokde
CISO, The Multi-Commodity Exchange of India 

Key priorities for 2021
“Going Digital” has now become an obsolete statement – the newer mantra is “Exploiting Digital”. If any organisation, start-up, or even individuals have made it thus far; clearly, they are thriving on exploiting ‘digital’, in some or the other form.

And this poses an incredibly unique challenge to any CxO – because there are no limits anymore. To put it simply; it has become a pressure-cooker, because everyone with a connected device is a potential customer. Every transaction missed is an opportunity lost.

Every CxO is going to be challenged with this limitless, new-normal from 2021 onwards. New technology adoption is no longer an option, but a matter of survival. Innovation has become a mandate for survival.

Adopting Work-From Anywhere
The traditional work from home (WFH), or work from anywhere was always an existing practice. Typically, this applied to the ‘niche’ and SME industry segment. And nothing has changed around that. The transformation that has taken place now is that every enterprise has to circumvent technology limitations, alter policy, revise customer expectations and re-look at human resource considerations. This is not a WFH, or a remote connectivity or secure access challenge. It is a drastic change in the nature of doing business itself.

Organisations are now realising the value of human resources – the tables have turned, where once upon a time employees had to extend all flexibility for the organisation. More so the unpredictability of the situation is adding complexity to decision making such as – how long will this last? Should we adopt a perpetual WFH model?  What do we do with our office premises / data centres?

Redesigning IT & Security strategy
Data is the most precious asset to any organisation. However, the same data is worthless in isolation, and it needs to travel, be processed and rightfully consumed. While the ecosystem around data is constantly changing – principles of data protection at rest, in motion and in process remain the same. A layered-data-centric security strategy is one of the best ways to prepare an organisation for any threat; new or emerging – identify the crown jewels and build the layers around it.

Another particularly important aspect of the emerging threats is “Distance” – to curtail the threats organizations were bust reducing the distance by bringing employees to office, providing the company computers, meeting conducted in-person, having on-premises data centres, and so on. The pandemic has disturbed this equation, and distances have widened again – resulting in loss of control, and weaker policies.