New IT function looks more like business desk

Sayed Peerzade

Group Chief Information Officer

Reliance Big Entertainment

“Across industries, irrespective of nature of business, IT was always very much integral part of business, however Industry started identifying the importance of IT post Digitalization era. Reliance Entertainment started its business keeping its vision of Digital businesses, so IT was always played the prominent role. However its consolidation of Digital businesses Mandate, which brought IT in to board room. IT has taken a lead role of bringing the businesses to one technology platform and also making the business viable to operate. This is where we brought maximum innovations and that journey continued till now. Those innovations not only turned around the business, also opened the doors to new business ventures as well. Now IT has taken a permanent place in board room and no business decision is taken unless bringing IT on to board.

With availability of ample data and advancements of BigData technologies to a level where we can have live analytics, cognitive computing is naturally gets adapted. There are lots of technology changes happened from initial adaptation of SMAC model for us also. Digitalization is continual journey; we also keep advancing our technologies and bring new innovations as an when we progress. We are big adapters of open source, entire platforms we build across for digital businesses be in in development aspect or in Infra aspects are majority open source. We brought that aspects in cloud in our Cloud model as well. Currently we are almost in verge of deploying live analytics, next steps are ML & AI. The goal of cognitive computing is to simulate human thought processes in a computerized model. Using self-learning algorithms that use data mining, pattern recognition and natural language processing. We can adapt this to automate most part of business and also can increase user acquisition by giving faster and better interactive user experience.

For us the IT is not support function, we transitioned in to business function. Integrated it closely so that all new businesses can be enabled by IT. New IT function looks more like business desk and that’s what the trend is turning in to be. More and more adaptation of digital technologies, and advancement of technologies further, adding more responsibilities to IT to drive those businesses. CIO’s have to take lead and come with ideas to drive the businesses and be part of businesses. Team also needs to be inculcated the characteristic of business thinking.”