In our column ‘A Day In The Life Of’, we are trying to step into the shoes of the awesome techies from various organisations who are working in Emerging Tech areas like big data, data analytics, artificial intelligence and the internet of things, among others.
This week, we decided to talk to Avneesh Vats, the CIO at EESL, about his spiritualism and his dynamic take on the evolving role of the C-suite with respect to emerging technology.
Vats begins his day at the crack of dawn at 5 am. His morning ritual includes a cosy chat with his parents, Yoga and meditation. “Morning air is essential for our body and soul. Hence, I start my day with basic Yoga and meditation. It is the best way to have a peaceful mind, it generates clarity in thoughts and helps develop positivity,” he says.
Explaining how the role of the C-suite management has changed in India, Vats says that the CIOs are now increasingly concerned with enabling revenue growth and spearheading digital transformation efforts for their organisation. “To remain relevant, they are increasingly realigning their activities with their organisation’s business objectives. They are increasingly expected to guide corporate boards on how to leverage IT strategically to gain competitive advantage. At EESL, we work closely with business teams to define a common set of objectives and success parameters. On the basis of these, we form an alliance with the business department to achieve the objective by delivering an IT-enabled, value-added service,” he explains.
Vats in May won the prestigious Analytics100 award for Data-Driven CxO at MachineCon 2019. This award is given to executives who have successfully leveraged analytics for their business benefit.
Vats says that one of the things that push him to socialise even with his busy schedule is his friends. “I strongly believe that there is always something to learn from each person you meet in life, therefore, I keep learning while socialising. My friends are scattered in different parts of the cities. Meeting them over dinner and catching up is the highlight and guilty pleasure of almost every tour I go for.”
Vats says that his wife is of the most important sounding boards and pillars of support in his life. “I am blessed to have an extremely understanding and clear-headed wife. She fills into my shoes perfectly whenever required, even when she is a working professional herself,” he says proudly.
When asked about his work, Vats says, “Nowadays, an organisation’s decisions are data-driven. They are focussed on implementing the latest technology. It is important for my company and me to make sure that all key persons in the organisation are equipped with data-driven tools. This drives businesses based on digital data, transforms it into information that further helps us to take the right decision at the right time.”
His short term goals with EESL are very simple and precise:
- Creating a vision of what is possible in leveraging technology
- Aligning technology with business strategies
- Adopting new solutions
- Modernising legacy applications
- Institutionalising DevOps
- Improving data management/business intelligence
- Increasing automation
- Consolidating applications onto the cloud
- Sun setting old applications
- Improving security
Talking about his five-year plan for the organisation, Vats says, “India is a country of approximate six lack villages with a huge population where literacy level, expenditure power and awareness of people about energy and environment saving is less. Hence, we are required to put more effort to convince them to push energy efficient appliances for their own benefits. Our EESL Smart Meter National Programme (SMNP) aims to eventually replace 25 crore conventional meters with smart meters across India. Our NDMC project will be completed in 2019… I’m confident that we are on the right track and carry forward the company mission with more vigour and committed to helping in solving energy-related problems that we face as a country.”
ALSO SEE:
