Kapil Dev Singh writes his first book titled ‘Looking Inwards’ with a strong message. He invokes the ancient wisdom of the oriental sages when he titles the book: ‘Looking Inwards’ – what is business value of IT’?

The new age business leaders having delegated the efficiency hunt to experts are now dialoguing on “How to build business value from IT”? The book therefore is a must read for CEOs who want to know the emerging perspectives and challenges of running their business in an IT dependent global playground.

In chapter 6 he introduces the concept of and elaborates the model of ‘Complexity Leadership’ borrowing from a similar theory of Mary Uhl-Bien et al. He advocates business discussions on the value of IT among CXOs and CEOs when they sit around with the CIO.

By Administrative Leadership he refers to the instrumental role of managers including tasked structuring, engagement planning, allocating resource, deploying strategy, alignment and how they are used to take recourse to hierarchical and bureaucratic transactions.

By Adaptive Leadership he refers to the influential role and points to the emergent interactive phenomena that produce adaptive outcomes in a social system – a “collaborative steering force” that emerges in a non-lean ear manner from the discourses among stake holders. Ex: Process of negotiation, selection between alternatives, including the interaction between CIOs & CXOs.

By Enabling Leadership is meant the creative phase, the catalytic role for the Adaptive leadership to thrive. Whenever there are entanglement between the influential and the instrumental functions the enabling leadership intervenes to channelize knowledge and creativity from adaptive structures to administrative structures.

In chapter 9 he shares his own research on the productivity of IT in India. According to Kapil the extent to which IT can influence performance through its impact on the organizational processes is yet to be widely understood. He predicts the emerging power of the CIO who looks at the ‘bright picture’ hiding within the big picture.

Amplifying the source of the core purpose of IT and its productivity he illuminates the nature of the environment (competitors, customers & talent availability), the disposition of the top management (CEO & CXO towards IT) and the conversations about the potential and potency of IT to bring solutions.

Looking forward, he wants CXOs & CEOs to understand the business-IT alignment and the advances in technology management. Borrowing from Mooney, he predicts that business value from IT can be measured for the – automational, informational & transformational effects.

According to Kapil the scope for research and further specialization of the CIO is opening up already. He needs great applause for de-mystifying Business value of IT.

by A. S. Vasudevan, Dean ODLC – Pegasus Institute for Excellence