Engaging with CIOs - need ideas for ways of engagement

Narasimhan (Kishore)

Everyone, last week, Avinash had organized a conference call with senior members of the CIO Association of India (CAI) and a few EMERGE members. CAI brought in CIOs from well-known mid- and large-sized companies to the call. This is probably the first time anywhere that Vendors and Buyers are looking to work together for the Greater Good, so this is both exciting and powerful.

Our objectives from this relationship with CAI were set out as follows:

  • Have software SMEs "learn the ropes", so to speak, of marketing & selling to large corporations.
  • Showcase software SME products and services for CIOs to consider as serious purchase options.
  • Use CIO knowledge-base to identify niches that software SMEs can develop products and services for.
  • Generally increase engagement between CIOs and software SMEs for bidirectional learning.

There was a lot of conversation about how we can achieve these and other objectives. We came to the conclusion that the next step is to build specific initiatives to make these objectives happen, over the short, medium and long term. Some of the ideas discussed are:

  1. Create a focused newsletter that we can send CAI members periodically, highlighting EMERGE members' achievements. We thought that, among other things, it'd be good to highlight the perspectives of CIOs who have been successful at working with EMERGE member-companies. So EMERGE companies can possibly nominate their customer CIOs to talk about what they've done as a vendor, making for valuable reading for other CIOs.
  2. Create CAI-driven events like the Product Conclave (where some of the CIOs personally saw the variety and strengths of EMERGE member-companies) around the country. So participating EMERGE members can pitch their services and products, bringing wider appreciation among CIOs.
  3. Integrate THE CIO Forum and the EMERGE Forum such that CIOs and EMERGE members can interact online seamlessly and effectively. While technical integration may take some time to do, we can probably at least bring CIOs into the EMERGE Forum and check if some of us can participate in the CIO Forum in return.
  4. Put together a "steering committee" of some kind, peopled by CAI and EMERGE members, to drive more initiatives in this regard as we go along. 

That's about as far as we got in the call. What we need now are more ideas - specific, actionable items - that we can work on with CAI. With these ideas, we also need people who will volunteer to anchor specific initiatives. Any ideas - and volunteers - are welcome! Please let us know what you think. Thanks!

Replies to this Topic

Nari

As I see it, there is learning that needs to flow both ways - CIO's to Emerge Companies and Emerge Companies to CIOs. These may be just restatement of what Kishore is proposing in broad outlines, but I am imagining to add value here: Smile

I would propose the following for CIOs to Emerge Company Direction:

a. A CIO-Emerge Perception-Opportunities-Challenges one day conference: The goals of this conference would be to introduce Emerge companies to the perspectives, perceptions, opportunities and challenges that CIOs face when considering Emerge companies for their needs - What will it take for them to consider Emerge companies without risk to themselves and their companies? What areas are they looking for less expensive, innovative solutions? SaaS, OpenSource, etc. The idea here is for the CIOs to share their frustrations and why they may consider buying from Oracle instead of a local Indian Emerge company?

b. If there are official India CIO organs like newsletters, how do we make them available to Emerge members. This could be ongoing education of Emerge companies.

On the reverse direction Emerge companies to CIOs:

a. Emerge Company Open Houses by City : This is identifying three or four major cities depending upon Emerge company momentum and organizing a one day Open house. Emerge companies can set up their booths and do demos.

b. Emerge company Emerging Technology Conference: Just like we did Emerge 50, select a few Innovative Emerge companies and have them present their technologies. This way CIOs can get some valuable inputs of new ways to solve old problems.

c. Success stories Conference - Emerge companies and CIOs come and talk about successful application of Emerge company technology with Indian CIOs. Process they went through and how they managed the risk and questions that come with choosing a small or medium sized vendor instead of choosing"IBM or Oracle where nobody got fired for doing so"!

In the both directions category:

a. Cross posting of certain entries from Emerge blog to CIO blogs if the author thinks relevant. This does not have to be fancy integration but just the membership and the ability to log into the other system and post the same things.

b. Cross posting of Newsletters from both sides on each others' forums.

Hope this is useful!

 

Avinash

Thanks Kishore, Nari for sharing your inputs. We are planning to do the next EMERGEOUT Conclave in Pune in the month of March 2010…we could have a good focus on CIO-Emerge Perception-Opportunities-Challenges and also do some showcase of technology stuff as that came out as a requirement. We would soon be starting with featuring some CIOs who are using products/solutions from emerging companies.

Thanks,
Avinash

George

Avinash,

Here is my suggestion. As all Emerge Vendors to write a paragraph on their products. Compile it (after categorizing it) and give it to the CAI and other organs.

Then let the CIO's who have decided to come for the event (not a panel) decide the list of vendors/ products they would like to be showcased for the event.

Rather than a big list of action items, this small listing can be the first actionable step.

 

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