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News >> Technology >>
CIOs optimistic, but demand sharing risks
By siliconindia
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Monday, 12 July 2004, 19:30 IST
At the premier siliconindia CIO Perspective Breakfast session held in New York, a panel of CIOs from various industry verticals delivered a vote of optimism for new technologies, products and services, and at the same time demanded that product vendors and services companies share their business risks.
Sandeep Manchanda, CIO for global development at Marsh & McLennan companies, said that each of the three holding companies had different ERPs, infrastructure, and distinct set of standards. The need of the day is for the three environments to share and leverage on the rich information each holds, thereby increasing go-to-market initiatives. The Marsh, Mercer and Putnam companies have enough business for each other, if only we can share knowledge, he observed.
Akhil Bhandari from CCL Industries, Toronto, Canada, has refused to pay a product license, but is willing to share profits from the promised cost savings the product vendor claims his software will deliver. I can pay the cost of implementation, but your profit should be tied to my profits, he declared.
Other CIOs included former Chicos CIO, Ajit Patel, Vic Datta from IBM Global Services, Piyush Singh from RLI Corp., and Nitin Bharghava, head of the IT Business Infrastructure at Aetna. Datta from IBM made a case for product companies to consider partnership with the giant, as that would open up doors. We consume most of our cooking, said Datta. We are constantly reviewing new technologies and can work with promising ones that would benefit both of us.
Piyush Singh from RLI focused on IT as a business value. We can always find budgets for the right projects, he said. What I look for is value from technology. We need to be very clear on what we will derive from our spend. And vendors should appreciate that too.
Ram Mynampati, president of Satyam, North Americas, led off the interactive session with a keynote address. We see promise in many fieldsRFID, mobile applications, open ware, and so on. As a global service provider, we are sensitive to the customer needs and review each technology in light of what it can do to bring our customer closer to their customers, he said.
The next CIO Perspective is planned to be held in Chicago, on 27 August, 2004. The siliconindia CIO Perspective Breakfast is a premier panel for bridging technology vendors and buyers, and is open to attendance by invitation only.