Pallavi Katiyar started her profession as an IT marketing consultant, and in the present day is main a much wider portfolio because the CIO of Cyient. All through her skilled journey, she has had alternatives to play completely different roles: “There has by no means been a boring second,” she says.
Over the previous 22 years, Katiyar has labored in several domains, applied sciences, and industries, and that has opened up lots of avenues for her, from coding and product design to operating giant RFPs and SAP implementations. She’s additionally been concerned in provide chain consulting, vendor administration, and, most just lately, driving giant infrastructure and cybersecurity transformation tasks.
On this interview with CIO India, Katiyar talks about her administration philosophy, and the way she has directed her profession.
CIO India: What has been your best profession achievement?
Pallavi Katiyar: I’ve been very experimental and haven’t hesitated to tackle new challenges. This risk-taking functionality and fervour for fixing issues opened up a chance — an M&A initiative by a $21 billion firm in certainly one of my earlier organizations. I led the IT integration for 2 world enterprise models that got here collectively by way of this M&A route.
The 2 had very completely different enterprise and infrastructure portfolios with just a few synergies. This made it complicated as a result of each companies claimed to be extra superior. Even earlier than you can begin wanting into the technical integration, you’re attempting to get the groups aligned on the long run panorama — what’s retained and what’s changed. The combination was taking place throughout nations, so the execution must be efficient because it impacts lots of of areas throughout the globe. The entire chain of administration side and communication turned crucial.
It was a three-year mission and required the combination of the whole IT software infrastructure and safety portfolios. It was the hardest and essentially the most complicated program that I’ve ever taken up in my life. I’m very happy with that achievement as a result of it pushed me far past my consolation zone.
CIO India: What’s the hardest choice you’ve had to soak up your IT profession, and the way did you make it?
Katiyar: Becoming a member of DuPont was most likely the hardest choice for me. Previous to that, I labored in IT companies and the brand new function required me to maneuver in the direction of the enterprise aspect. It was uncharted territory for me. I used to be doing extraordinarily nicely on the IT companies aspect and issues have been wanting promising from a profession standpoint. At DuPont, I used to be anticipated to arrange a supply centre for them in India, rebuild the potential in-house, and drive giant vendor consolidation. Shifting to the enterprise aspect after I actually didn’t have any prior expertise in that space was powerful.
I don’t hesitate to take up new challenges, however after I spoke to the CIO of DuPont, I felt extra assured to take up the brand new function. He had a really clear imaginative and prescient of what he wished and was very captivated with it. That made the decision-making simpler for me.
CIO India: What’s the very best profession recommendation you ever obtained?
Katiyar: I discovered the significance of taking a wager on individuals. I credit score lots of the place I’m in the present day to my CIO from a earlier group. He trusted me and empowered me to ship sure tasks and roles which was a turning level in my profession.
From one other CIO I labored for I discovered the significance of person expertise. She was very explicit about constructing person expertise in each mission. Many instances, IT features are inward-focused, bringing within the best-in-class know-how however not essentially wanting from a person perspective.
I’ve discovered so much from the CEO of Cyient too. He believes in investing sooner or later and by no means hesitates to try this. The extra I work with him, the extra I see the trajectory of know-how progress. A number of the investments he made appeared slightly far-fetched on the time, however these investments are giving us ROI in the present day.
CIO India: What are the prospects for profession mobility for a CIO? What roles would you aspire to?
Katiyar: Right now, CIOs are working in shut collaboration with enterprise leaders, and they’re fixing actual enterprise issues. That makes it a lot simpler for CIOs to take up completely different roles as a result of we’ve a superb understanding of enterprise priorities, challenges, buyer expectations, the aggressive panorama, and the business and governance elements.
For me, it’s extra in regards to the ardour to resolve enterprise issues, enabling higher collaboration, larger productiveness, and efficiency. It doesn’t matter a lot if that is available in a business-facing function or whether or not it comes as one other function inside one of many enabling features like HR or operations. It’s extra about the issue and the character of the problem that I’ve to resolve that might outline the long run function I shall be taking on.
CIO India: How do you groom the subsequent degree of management for the CIO function?
Katiyar: Nothing is fixed, not even our positions. Any person took a wager on me and it’s necessary that I do the identical. I’ve a four-point mantra on the subject of individuals: problem, belief, empower and allow.
The secret is to establish promising people and take educated dangers. You must have the ability to assess the developments and the event wants of that particular person and begin serving to her or him to achieve success within the new function. And you need to belief them with extra tasks and push them out of their consolation zone.
CIO India: Have you ever confronted any uncommon challenges throughout any mission implementation?
Katiyar: After I joined Cyient we have been going by way of an SAP implementation. We have been SAP customers for a really lengthy, however we have been implementing new functionalities for mission managers to get extra real-time reporting round tasks, useful resource utilization, and invoicing. This required a major change in the best way a mission supervisor would historically run a few of these processes.
Nonetheless, the groups have been fighting the brand new processes and instruments. I noticed that it was hampering our capacity, and the preliminary goal of changing into extra productive and efficient was defeated. That’s after I determined to pause the mission and went again to the drafting board — the place is it that we’re seeing gaps, and what must be executed to handle these gaps? We listed all the problems and the necessities once more and put a roadmap towards them. We walked managers by way of numerous elements of the options, what to anticipate and what to not anticipate, after which we labored in the direction of implementing them to make them extra aligned with the enterprise necessities.
It took us a superb six to eight months extra, however the good factor is that by the tip of this mission, whole reporting associated to tasks began coming instantly from the system.
CIO India: What myths about know-how, IT/IS administration, digital transformation, and the CIO function would you wish to debunk?
Katiyar: Digital transformation requires a whole ecosystem change — a whole transformation of the way you do issues finish to finish, and it usually wants a cultural and mindset change. As CIOs, we have to do a greater job of explaining to our stakeholders what it actually entails.
Suppose you herald RPA for finance features. The know-how is meant to automate repetitive duties which the associates within the finance perform is probably not used to. They’re used to engaged on Excel sheets and wish to essentially begin pondering otherwise in any other case RPA will fail. It must be a stability of what’s automated and the way that particular person whose work is probably getting reworked must be rescaled.
CIO India: What’s your key studying from the final 20 years?
Katiyar: Don’t blindly chase others. It’s not essential to all the time go for the very best in school or essentially the most superior resolution. In case your group is just not prepared for it then the chance of failure is way larger than what you anticipated.
I’ve been half of some tasks the place I used to be an lively participant and my intestine feeling mentioned that the answer is just not proper for the corporate, however I used to be not very vocal about it, or possibly I used to be not ready to be vocal about it at that cut-off date. I want I had trusted my instincts and possibly created some consciousness about it. However in the present day, I’m very diligent on the subject of figuring out and choosing the options for my group.
CIO India: If you happen to weren’t a CIO, what would you be?
Katiyar: I’m captivated with making training accessible to the not-so-privileged a part of society. I might have been engaged on constructing some options or leveraging know-how to make it occur. There’s a excessive chance that I’d nonetheless find yourself doing that just a few years down the road!
