Amitabh Mishra, Chief Digital Officer – Vedanta Resources.

Not only is he or she expected to own and drive technology initiatives, a CIO is supposed to understand Digital, Industry 4.0 and other new-age technologies, and explain the implications and possibilities of such technologies to business leaders. “For example, Artificial Intelligence can fundamentally transform end-consumer experiences. But the CIO needs to be able to articulate the benefits of AI in a way that business leaders can rally around,” says Amitabh Mishra, Chief Digital Officer – Vedanta Resources.

“Technology, by definition, is always going to change. A few years ago you heard a lot of noise around SMAC. Now, that has gone and the focus has shifted to Digital, Industry 4.0 and AI. Change is constant in the technology space. Accordingly, the role of the CIO continues to evolve. Unlike other supporting functions such as Finance or HR, where change occurs far more slowly, in Technology the pace of change is quite fast. While that keeps the CIO’s life interesting, it also places a certain amount of stress and burden on the CIO’s mind. Not only does the CIO need to keep the lights on, he or she also needs to ensure technological opportunities are proactively utilized,” says Amitabh. 

In the early days of cloud, there was always a perception that cloud, especially the public cloud has security as a flaw. However, CIOs are realizing that the cloud is as secure as, if not more secure than, their on-premise infrastructure. 

“Once you move past this consideration of whether the cloud is secured or not, you will need to ask yourself if the price is right. That is a harder question to answer than security, because the total cost of ownership is difficult to figure out. Finally, there is the question of need. Should certain critical systems be on the premises? For example, if an IoT network is compromised, can it cripple the operations in an industrial company? If so, does it make sense to keep ‘connected’ equipment off the cloud?” says Amitabh.