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The Smart Techie was renamed Siliconindia India Edition starting Feb 2012 to continue the nearly two decade track record of excellence of our US edition.

July - 2012 - issue > CIO Insights

Enable, Enhance and Engender to create new Business Models

V S Parthasarthy
Group CIO & Executive VP of M&A, Finance & Accounts-Mahindra & Mahindra
Monday, July 2, 2012
V S Parthasarthy
V S Parthasarthy is the Group CIO & Executive Vice President of M&A, Finance and Accounts at Mahindra & Mahindra, an Indian multinational automaker headquartered in Mumbai. The company's operations span 18 key industries that form the foundation of every modern economy. It is a multinational group with more than 144,000 employees in over 100 countries across the globe. Having joined the company in 2000 as Head of Performance Management and IT, Parthasarthy has since held several key positions and roles in the company. The multifaceted leader led a 400 member team through the iconic Harmony project at Mahindra and Mahindra where they worked at developing a single ERP platform (SAP) for all the group companies. Partha as he is fondly known believes that the CIO is not just a technology enabler, but a business solution provider. Under his leadership M&A team has executed more than 30 transactions and acquisitions across geographies. Parthasarthy shares his views on what CIOs should prioritize in changing pace of enterprise needs.

Changing Facets of Technology

It is interesting to note that technology in enterprises is no more an additive and has become ecological. We stand today at cross roads and whatever happens next in IT will have the power to transform the complete eco cycle and business model. The priority here is to see how these technological changes happen and how they impact the entire eco system. There are three angles to it – organization, people and stake holders. The CIO’s priority is to Connect, Converge and Collaborate (CCC). So, we must give the organization a frame work to make CCC a reality.

The CIO is no more an enabler of function, but has transformed into a business IT person who drives business transformation to bring in a competitive edge. Organizations also need to be future ready. We require technologies and solutions which are not only for today, but also serve tomorrow. Another important facet of change is that people have become extremely dependent on technology. If mails are not available for an hour, I get bombarded with so many phone calls that it appears as if there has been a catastrophe somewhere. Individuals with gadgets such as iPads or Android devices want to stay connected all the time so information should be available to them seamlessly. This has given rise to our major challenge which is security concerns. Today, neither the U.S. Defense sector nor Facebook is impervious to these security attacks which can have serious crippling effects.

Major Challenges


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