INDUSTRY WATCH
…DIGITAL HAS BECOME A CORNERSTONE IN OUR
SERVICE DELIVERY STRATEGY FOR TECHNOLOGY
FUNCTIONS. ENABLING, MOBILE ONLY
APPLICATIONS, GAMIFICATION OF LEARNING
SYSTEMS AND LEVERAGING SOCIAL TOOLS FOR
ENTERPRISE INTERACTIONS HAS BECOME TABLE
STAKES IN DELOITTE To be fair, in our part, the technology
team ensures that during the
discussions we behave and articulate
ourselves like market leaders and
not techno-commercial managers.
As a matter of fact, more than a few
technology team members come from
our market facing functions and hence
have a deep understanding of market
challenges and opportunities when
engaging with our top leadership.
services industry requires us to
execute consistently at a high level
of quality and efficiency. These
attributes are enabled by a number
of the technology platforms available
to our practitioners as they work with
our clients. Your advice to aspiring IT
leaders?
Taking a page of Prof. Robert Kaplan’s
playbook (Professor at Harvard Business
School), my advice for an aspiring
leader would be to ensure that the
trilogy of “Vision - Priorities - Alignment”
are in sync. Leaders need to be able
to articulate their vision well and
successfully communicate that vision
to a range of people in their sphere of
influence. Based on this vision, they
must have very clear priorities and not
lose focus on driving these priorities.
Lastly, the alignment between this
vision, their priorities and the teams
supporting their vision becomes critical.
Keep these three levers well managed
and there’s no stopping you.
Moreover, given our role in the
market ecosystem a number of
our clients look towards us for
thought leadership. This requires
us to not only have the conceptual
understanding of latest trends but
also have an appreciation for the
nuances behind implementing a
number of business drivers which are
supported by technology solutions.
For example, we bring real world
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INTELLIGENTCIO
experiences in large scale technology
transformation programs.
There is a general perception
among most CIOs that IT is
not adequately heard in top-
level executive management
talks. What do you think
about this school of thought?
To be perfectly honest, I haven’t
faced this scenario at Deloitte Middle
East. IT topics are a significant
part of any executive discussion in
the region. Strategic technology
management is frequently addressed
by our regional leaders across
functions such as Finance, HR,
Marketing, etc. and our service lines
such as Audit, Tax and Consulting.
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