STRATEGIES FROM A CIO

Never confuse transformation with technology strategy. For core technology – it is better to go internal. Here’s a CIO’s formula for using technology right. From high-accuracy-oriented NLG to stress-testing platforms, from scalable frameworks to microservices, from reusable modules to machine learning, this CIO rates technology with a distinct report card. Ramesh Lakshminarayanan, CIO, CRISIL discusses some of the CIO strategies.

- Pratima Harigunani

Can you tell us about your technology strategy – how do you choose, invest, build and evolve any area or tool? What goes in your mind during those decisions?

Technology strategy is never a point-in-time activity. We often confuse a transformation exercise with technology strategy. I see technology strategy as a continuous process, wherein the benchmarks and goals keep changing and evolving based on the requirement of your business ecosystem.

We looked at technology strategy from the principles of 5 S – simplify, standardise, sunset, sharpen and service orientation. All our technology decisions were made on the basis of having a fit to these principles.

Give us a peek into each s and how you embraced technology changes at each level

The first part of the strategy was initiated three years back with the need to focus on streamlining of operations (better management of service level agreements, better change management etc). Our initial focus was on creating the right organisational structure and processes, to lay a strong foundation. In this phase, we standardised a lot of our tech processes such as architecture, platform and software programmes to be used.

The second phase was to simplify our app development framework and choose something that can be foundational. We, therefore, chose a technology framework that is scalable (Spark), widely used (java Spring Boot) and UI/UX friendly (Angular). We also decided early on to focus on building our new apps on micro services architecture so that they are decoupled. This approach helped us make things simple.