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Let us compare two real-world Indian or ganizations. The first is a 97-year-old steel company with a turnover of Rs 10,843 crore, employing nearly 43,500 people. The second is a six-year old healthcare company with a turnover of Rs 69 crore, employing nearly 680 people.

What the two have in common is that both organizations attribute their business success to the appropriate use of information technology. For example, the integrated steel company streamlined its various business processes and functions to generate savings and business value in crores of rupees. The healthcare company has excelled in customer service through integrated management systems and visual computing.

What is different about them is that they have used information technology in entirely different ways. The steel company used it to automate business processes that have existed for decades and was able to cut down on systemic inefficiencies. In addition, it added electronically-enabled new business processes like e-procurement to save hard cash. The healthcare company has since its inception adhered to a new paradigm in delivering healthcare, a paradigm in which technology is indispensable.

Who is the leader of this charge, if it is not the CEO of the organization?

Is it the head of production, who understands that reverse auctions help lower raw material costs and the savings can be directly reflected in the balance sheet? Is it the head of sales and marketing, who points out that transparency and clarity into the process of order fulfillment helps reduce the sales cycle and the accounts receivables' status? Or is it the head of finance, who knows that being able to measure corporate performance across the enterprise helps in aligning business goals with strategic objectives?

Or is it the CIO, who understands the value-gains that can be made from the application of technology to business, who as the custodian of IT, engineers the creation of solutions, who evangelizes new ways of doing business, who orchestrates the interplay between various technologies and business functions, and who functions as a conduit in the delivery of these business benefits?

The question was a rhetorical one. The answer, it turns out, is only too obvious.

The CIO has emerged as a business leader who straddles the domains of technology, people, and processes to deliver unique value to the business. He operates at a level higher than a manager of technology, at a level equal to the head of any other business function, and a level lower than the topmost executive authority.

But haven't we heard this before-that IT is strategic to business, and that the CIO is important? Isn't all this old hat and hot air?

This time, it turns out, the answer is a resounding no. This new-age CIO has emerged phoenix-like from the ashes of teh old paradigm where the CIO was regarded a mere step-child of the organization, more an dispensable cog rather than a very important organic component. The CIO in this new avatar is the business leader who fully understands the wisdom of using IT to optimize business performance and productivity.

The CIOL-Dataquest Enterprise Connect Awards celebrate the birth of this new entity.

Iishwar Daas Nair in Mumbai

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