Mr Varun Jha, chief information officer (CIO), Tata Steel was conferred the c-Change Award for being selected as the Best CIO. He was given this award for demonstrating leadership qualities, strategically deploying IT, which resulted in enhanced business benefits in the Cyber India Online Limited (CIOL) -Enterprise Connect Award ceremony held at Mumbai on August 27, 2004.

In its bid to recognise and reward the exemplary work being done by the CIOs, India’s largest IT portal CIOL joined hands with Dataquest to conduct the Enterprise Connect Awards. “The Enterprise Connect Award is built around a framework that recognises a CIO’s leadership qualities, business-technology understanding, people orientation and performance through pioneering and innovative efforts,” according to Mr E. Abraham Mathew, president, CIOL.

Some of the factors that were considered for selecting the best CIO are:

• pioneering effort in adopting cutting edge / emerging technologies ahead of time.

• innovating by enhancing an existing technology / application.

• advocating acceptance of IT within the organisation’s top management and end users.

• showing skills as an extended manager who has created value for business by connecting with strategic external stakeholders.

CIOL, assistant vice president, Mr Anil Kumar described the CIOL Enterprise Connect Award as one to honor and highlight CIOs who have brought out ‘Excellence in Implementing IT’. Elaborating further, he said, “Those who have through innovative and pioneering efforts silently changed the business climate of their organisations ensuring the best advantage out of technology investments. This is an opportunity to showcase a CIO’s and organisation’s achievements. It is to bring forth a valuable repository of knowledge”.

The nominations for the award began from May 5, 2004. There was an overwhelming response with around 120 nominations. Some of the leading companies who responded include ONGC Ltd, Apollo Tyres, TVS Motors, IDBI Bank, HDFC Bank, UTI Bank, Maruti Udyog Ltd. etc.

The panel of judges was headed by Mr Ashok Soota, chairman and CEO of MindTree Consulting. The jury also included Mr Shyam Malhotra, editor-in-chief, CyberMedia Publications, Mr Ibraahim Ahmed, Editor, Voice&Data, independent consultant Mr D. Ashok and Prof. S Bhatnagar of IMM-A.