It was time to refresh the data center with existing infrastructure
completing its lifecycle; some of the equipment was end of life with no support
available, the rest needed replacement to ensure that the company stays current
with technology. The IT team gathered all the data and statistics on usage to
arrive at new configurations that will serve them for the next 3-4 years. All
interested vendors contributed to the technology evaluation with differentiated
solutions promoting esoteric features that normally don’t matter.
The team assimilated the information overload with judicious sifting
that created a clear picture aligning the need to the offerings. It was a fair
comparison where technology took precedence over comfort with any specific
vendor or technology. To be doubly sure, the team reached out to peers and
seniors across the industry to validate the recommendation. After a few
iterations, all of it came through as good to go. To conclude the exercise, a
presentation was prepared for the CEO who would needed to approve the budget
and bless the project.
The CEO was known to be a technophile who kept the CIO and the rest of
IT on their toes; he was well read, well connected and at times deep dived into
finer details that most techies would find hard to hold a conversation. He was
the force behind the company adopting IT in the way they did, spending
judiciously and yet remaining current with industry evolution; recent times had
seen a slowdown in investments and it was time to play catch-up. D-day arrived
and the CIO along with the team was ready to present.
Why have you chosen the
configuration that you present ? What are my options with engineered systems or
for that matter Public Cloud ? Why do I need to invest in 50 TB of storage
upfront; how can I stagger the deployment ? Why have you chosen 12 core
processors over 16 core ? Why not 1.2 TB disks or SATA drives which offer
higher capacity ? Why is the number of VMs so low per physical box ? Where is
your Cloud strategy ? The
discussion went on for an hour with the CEO throwing question after question at
the team.
The team could field only some and ran out of answers after some time;
they promised to rework the solution with clarifications sought and inputs
given. They were not expecting the kind of questions asked, they had prepared
the business case based on transaction volume, new systems underway and
planned, business growth and new initiatives that the business had planned over
the next few years. It was as if the tables had turned on them with the CEO
going technical while they had focused on business outcomes.
Is this a reality for large number of CIOs or just an exception to the
rule where CEOs and CXOs rarely get into technology discussions citing
ignorance and the fact that they find technology unfathomable ? Scanning the
horizon I find that this breed of techno savvy CXOs is beginning to grow; they
may not be able to differentiate between SAS and NL-SAS drives or size storage
based on IOPS, they do understand basics that matter and are able to hold their
own based on reasonable understanding of technology; all thanks to tech going
mainstream media.
This world is antonymous to the world I wrote about last week (My
CFO thinks he knows technology). There are people who know technology
and use their expertise where it matters and there is a breed who thinks who
know and want to show off in various forums. The first engage and challenge you
to find better solutions, the other group ends up being a pain with their
pseudo expertise. It takes little effort to see through the façade of the
latter who can derail the best of hard work by seeding random thoughts of
doubt.
Having worked with both camps, I found that opportunities can be created
with the technophiles to engage and innovate depending on your risk appetite
and ability by staying updated with finer nuances of technology. This may sound
contradictory to the well beaten drum that CIOs need to move away from
technology to business; my view is that CIOs cannot leave their foundations for
purportedly greener pastures; they need to stay grounded in their domain while
learning the newer skills and moving forth.
After all if the CFO does not know about IRR, NPV or ROA (Return on
Assets), s/he will become a liability to the organization !
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