Events Cover

So long, Seylan

Deepali Gupta on Technology Senate 2004 which provided India’s top CIOs with food for thought

Close to two hundred of India’s leading CIOs came together in Colombo, Sri Lanka, for Technology Senate (TS) 2004, a four-day conference at the end of October, to familiarise themselves with trends in and the future of information technology in India, and to some extent, the world.

The CIOs got an early start with an absorbing CIO roundtable and a session on storage management and virtualisation.

As it turned out, the concerns of today’s CIOs have changed. They are no longer worried about proving the return on investment, as most CEOs are aware of the significance of technology. As L N Sundarrajan put it, the CIO now has to think in terms of topline, bottomline and deadline.

In an age of increasing specialisation, we have observed a shift from in-house teams to outsourced functions. Does this mean that the relevance of the CIO is undermined? The CIOs gathered expressed their views freely, and reached the conclusion that outsourcing only made them more critical to the organisation. A panel concluded that matrix management was the most critical role of the CIO, and for that he would need a sound understanding of the key drivers of the business, prevalent technology and the corporate culture of the company. On that note, TS sought to widen the horizons of all participants on both the strategic and technological fronts.

Seven subjects

Leading IT vendors presented an overview of the top technology topics across seven tracks.

It started with IBM affirming that storage management should be part of a holistic and well-planned IT strategy.

In the second track Sun spoke about unleashing the power of network computing using a well-designed information architecture, adopting a practical approach, and making the technology invisible to the end-user.

After that came the presentation on adaptive infrastructure management by Hewlett Packard. It highlighted the need for dynamic automation of business demands because a lot of network downtime is caused by misbehaving applications.

The fourth track had Reliance Infocomm speaking of the convergent enterprise, and the tools and methods by which it can be achieved.

Canon brought together a panel to speak of the importance of document management for the sake of effectively utilising printer resources.

Cisco and Novell touched upon the future of enterprise networking and identity management respectively.

Apart from what was held in the common conference room, there was a closed-door roundtable on information security which established that security was not just the responsibility of the IT department; it concluded that security risks can only be minimised, but not eliminated.

Pie and pineapple

To help the delegates focus on such intellectually intensive sessions, appetising meals were prepared keeping the health factor and the sedentary nature of the conference in mind. The food was light but had every bit of Sri Lankan ethnicity to make it exotic. There was a spread of salads, fruits and fruit juices. The spicy aroma of the

prawns mesmerised the eater. Accompanying the food was red rice to counter any reaction the spice-laden side dishes might provoke. For dessert a spread of flan, pie, cheese-cake and meringue were served with watermelon and pineapple.

The Gartner factor

At the end of last year’s TS, a number of CIOs had mentioned that they would welcome analysts who could give a broader perspective. The request did not go unheeded. This year there were some senior speakers from Gartner including Steve Bittinger and Bob Hayward. While Bittinger spoke of the need to outdo functional requirements if the IT department wished to avoid being outsourced, Hayward talked about the importance of IT governance.

Since not everyone can discuss his company’s issues out in the open, TS provided all CIOs the opportunity to interact with the Gartner consultants on a one-to-one basis.

Stamp that passport

It was crucial to intersperse all that brain activity with some distraction. Some of that distraction was provided for…and some just happened spontaneously.

In parallel with the sessions were theme pavilions which demonstrated technology that vendors expect will soon take the market by storm. These pavilions were as important to TS as countries are to the earth—which is why a passport system was set up.

At each exhibition that passport had to be stamped. At the end of the event, valid passports, once that had all the stamps and feedback, were collected and a lucky draw was held. The prize was a trip for two to London and it was won by Shirish Gariba, vice-president, IT, Elbee Express.

A unique feature of this year’s senate was the spouse programme. The better halves of the CIOs attending the seminar had a bus and a tour operator to themselves for two days. They visited a fishing village and many indulged in extensive shopping.

Award-winning CIOs

Technology Senate is not just about networking and knowledge sharing. It is also a golden opportunity to honour the often-overlooked heroes

of business. The Computer Associates Intelligent Enterprise 2004 and SecureSynergy Security Strategist 2004 Awards were held with that in mind.

Six CIOs were awarded for the business opportunities that they brought to their organisations by means of new implementations. Three were recognised for safeguarding their networks from a threat-ridden cyber world.

Splashing away

After three days of tech talk there was an evening beach party followed by a morning of water sports.

An elated gathering danced the night away to a mix of music styles. Then, as the day awoke, the participants visited a soft white-sand beach that led to green waters with a baby sun horizon.

If that gives you a calm feeling, then complete the picture with about a hundred and fifty people screaming as they rode banana floats, water scooters and jet skis, and played a game of water polo between the West (Mumbai, Pune) and the Rest (Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad).

This was just before Technology Senate 2004 came to an end, and the delegates flew back home with fond memories and in anticipation of next year’s TS event.

Where will that be held? What’s on the agenda? We’re not telling yet—the best things in life are worth waiting for.

Ninad Karpe, country manager, CA India, presents the Computer Associates Intelligent Enterprise 2004 Award (in the Others category) to Satyen Naik, assistant manager, IS, SUMUL	Eating fire: the delegates witness Sri Lankan culture first hand
De-lighted: healthy food to suit all palates in a folksy ambience	Painting the pavilions red: An overview of the theme pavilions
CIOs voice their concerns and aspirations during the roundtable conference	Come and join my party: the CIOs at the beach party on Mount Lavina
Despite numerous sessions, the audience’s enthusiasm was unabated	Kapil Bhatia, manager, IT, Syndicate Bank, takes the microphone and sings

deepali@networkmagazineindia.com