While talking about Tech Senate that largely caters to the CIOs of India, I am not sure how many of us have observed the silent drift the CIOs have made ? from their limited role as the technology leaders a few years back to taking on the role of business leaders. They are no longer just the technology experts, but they are in the forefront of the organizational hierarchy, applying IT to accelerate and support the organization's goals and roadmap. Dittoing these thoughts will be a presentation on ?Shifting Role of the CIO ? Technology to Business Leader in a Security Context? by Mr. Digvijay Sinh Chudasma, VP-Sales, Cyberoam, at Tech Senate.

These thoughts have found echo in many international magazines as well. A point in case is the recent survey on Indian CIOs ? Tomorrow's CIOs ? by one of the international IT magazines. The results reflected that most of these CIOs report directly to the CEOs or owners of their firms. These CIOs are more focused on business strategies and business decision-making, leaving IT infrastructure and application management to other senior members of their team.

Unlike their US counterparts, the role of Indian CIOs involves greater contribution to company innovation and growth, managing outsourced relationships, managing customers and the like. For them, attributes like leadership, execution, communication, vision and innovation define the role of a CIO better.

The way I see this role transformation of the Indian CIOs is that not only has the role of a CIO broadened but the importance of IT and its footprint in organizations has also grown manifolds today."