The company has outsourcing agreements with HP and IBM. Jha says 2,800 suppliers and other business partners are tied into the company's systems.

Top priorites include using IT to establish what Jha calls "customer value management," or providing new kinds of value to the company's customers, and building upon the company's existing busienss-intelligence capabilities.

Jha says the CEO-CIO gap that plagues some North American businesses is not much of an issue in India. "Most Indian CEOs have a technical background and an understanding of what IT can do," he says.

Tata Steel runs Windows and Lotus' SmartSuite on desktop computers. I asked Jha about his view on the Windows versus Linux debate. "May the best software win," he says. "[Why] do I care?" Tata Steel runs Windows because that's what its employees expect. "They found it more convenient," he says. The CIO views open-source software as a potential opportunity but says a lack of internal expertise for self-support remains an issue.

Over dinner, Jha told me that he's thinking about ways Tata Steel might fit Weblogging into the picture. He has two potential applications in mind: as a channel for customer support and communications, and as a way to facilitate internal knowledge management.

For more, see "India-China Pact Could Make Asia The Next IT Hub"

Now the newest 7100 Series BlackBerry is gaining popularity. It’s smaller than the other models, has a built-in speakerphone, Bluetooth technology, and SureType technology that integrates a phone keypad and QWERTY-style keyboard with intuitive software. The keyboard learns as you type, which makes it an intelligent and an efficient tool, said one conference attendee sporting the 7100t BlackBerry.

For those who prefer smaller mobile devices like a lightweight cell phone, a BlackBerry can be hard to get used to, the attendee told me. Because of its QWERTY-style keyboard, the latest model offers a smaller handset design, which makes it appealing to such individuals.

But as the BlackBerry gains ground across enterprises, it will become increasingly more than just an E-mail tool, says Avi Green, principal analyst for mobile devices at research firm Current Analysis. Many are already integrating BlackBerrys with CRM apps like Salesforce.com and soon additional services and tools will be available on BlackBerrys to develop wireless applications.

The attendee I spoke to at the conference said his company recently deployed 40 7100t BlackBerrys, which are available for purchase from T-Mobile. The company is taking a step beyond E-mail as well and has connected the devices to the corporate portal and intranet data, which allows employees to literally take the office with them wherever they go. “Our salespeople are telling us that they no longer need laptops because they have BlackBerrys,” he said.

But don’t leave your BlackBerry unattended, he warned. Although it comes with a number of security features, anyone can access your E-mail if they get hold of your device. The screen doesn’t lock and just goes black after a few minutes like most cell phones to conserve power. So with a press of a button the menu lights up and doesn’t require a security code or a PIN. I guess it's a well-known fact (for all of you who already have BlackBerrys), but it just goes to show that even the most advanced PDAs still need work.

Others feel that the future already belongs to young IT people. After all, less-experienced workers generally require smaller salaries, they have a strong passion for and typically have been trained to work with newer technologies, and (simply because of the nature of universities today) have various skills under their belts. But a new college grad shouldn't expect to have a significant impact on an existing IT infrastructure or the business model, for that matter, because "there is no substitute for experience when it comes to learning how to integrate business and technology," according to one reader.

Another concern seems to be that mature and experienced IT professionals are being pushed aside by a newer generation of IT workers coming out of college. But based on the responses, it seems that most companies aren't willing to spend their resources to train and teach the ropes to recent grads and, therefore, don't want to replace their established workers, who have years of acquired discipline, business, and technical knowledge that they already bring to the job.

So how can unproven young IT workers lacking years of experience get their feet wet in the business? Here are a few bits of advice from our blog readers, who have on an average between 10 and 30 years of work experience in the IT field and know the ins and outs of corporate politics:

1. Strive toward becoming a "specialized generalist": know something about a lot of areas and specialize in at least one to some degree.

2. Find a company that will allow you to make a difference and expand your role, but one that also is willing to support the mistakes and the learning curves of people new to the business. Try going to a smaller company that will let you "wear multiple hats" (but be warned that it might also offer a smaller salary and lesser benefits than a larger company).

3. To find such a company, join a local group where you can get insights on other companies in your area. For example, if you specialize in Unix code, look for a Unix group, or another group that fits your skill sets.

4. If you're already working at a company of choice, "stick [your] neck out in the business." Try to get involved in non-IT functions, even if it's in your department.

5. But be patient in serving time in the trenches of help desk and systems support. Don't strive to have your job be interesting and challenging all the time, especially if you're fresh at a company. "Respect is earned, not given," so learn the business first.

6. Find a mentor who has been with the company for several years and who can teach you the business and help you when you bump into problems.

7. If all else fails, try to go for less-traditional IT jobs, which are also less likely to be outsourced. "Health care is the place to be," suggests one reader.

These themes are anything but new, but what's so striking is the clear lack of progress by the vendors in breaking down the cost and complexity barriers associated with their products. So did Siebel's Mike Lawrie get booted because the company recently said it will badly miss its quarterly numbers? Probably. But neither Siebel nor many of the other purveyors of big honking applications have solved the larger and more important problems that their customers face. Ousting a CEO isn't going to help that cause.

What's your take? Have the enterprise software vendors gotten any better, or cheaper? What should they be doing?

At the InformationWeek Spring conference in Amelia Island, Fla., one attendee who works for a family-owned business explained why: It's the banks. They want to see even private companies master the ins and outs of Sarbox compliance or be prepared to take a hit on their financing terms, he says. The million dollars or so that his company expects to spend on Sarbox compliance isn't chump change by any means, but it's worth it when measured against potentially less-favorable terms on business loans.

It seems nobody's safe from what another attendee at the conference called "the biggest thing the government has ever done for the consulting industry." While at least one business-technology executive whose company has achieved Sarbox compliance conceded that he could appreciate the visibility the Sarbox process brings to the marketplace, his company hasn't yet seen any real ROI from the few million spent on getting compliant.

Hopefully, that will change in the not-too-distant future. But it seems that not everyone's holding their breath.

His point was that the IT explosion in countries like India and China is driving demand for American made hardware, software and other goods, creating additional IT jobs on the homefront. "The essence of globalization is interdependence," he said.

The fact is, IT unemployment in the U.S. now stands at 3.7%--a rate that most economists believe represents full employment. If you want to go in depth on this, see this week's issue of InformationWeek. My colleagues Eric Chabrow and Marianne Kolbasuk McGee take a look at what's behind the numbers and how individual IT workers are faring in today's market. Also check out my column this week on OutsourcingPipeline.com and let me know what you think about this issue.

Unfortunately, the enthusiasm has died down and the passion wore off for many once they became “just another tech-support guy” or “the guy behind the firewall.” This has to do with the common perception employers share that young minds are undeveloped minds.

One of my close friends got his wish after graduation when he landed an IT job at a major international bank. At age 22, he was already a skilled programmer and knew the business side of things well enough to serve as a liaison between the company’s IT and business departments. But to his disappointment, he became the guy behind the firewall. Caught up in the daily routine of tech support—helping people reboot their computers and guiding their hands through basic mouse-clicking exercises—he lost the motivation he once had to serve as an important driving force of the company. In a recent conversation, he told me that after two years at the company, he knows its systems in and out. He has completely automated his daily work and doesn’t feel challenged because the company is not using him for his full potential. No matter how many times he tried to show that he is more than just a technologist, he has remained invisible to his managers. Like many recent grads, he is trapped in a vicious cycle: He is young, multiskilled, and wants to be utilized better, but because he is young, he is not being utilized better.

I'm not a computer scientist, but after talking to quite a few people who are, I’ve learned that they are far from one-dimensional. IT is a competitive market, and every student entering the field is aware of the challenges. In fact, entire courses at universities are being devoted to preparing computer science students for a post-dot-com world where offshore outsourcing is increasingly gaining popularity. Students realize it’s not enough to just know technology anymore. Business, communications, finance, and much more has to be added to the mix and that’s exactly what universities are doing.

Some employers are also stating to see the value in hiring these young individuals with broad skills. “We’ve had a few ETC graduates come to Electronic Arts and set high expectations,” said Jon-Paul Dumont, a game designer at Electronic Arts and a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University’s Entertainment Technology Center, in a recent interview. In the past, Electronic Arts used to hire people from other game companies, but it's beginning to hire more college grads. “They realize that in order to keep growing they need to hire more people coming out straight from school. These are the people they can immediately place into creative leadership positions,” he said.

Other companies who have already hired college grads should take a moment to get to know them closely and evaluate their “hidden” skills. Or in Mr. Charan’s words: Give the younger generation a chance and get their feet wet in the business side of things. After all, these are the people who will one day run the company.

"A Local Focus Is Crucial For Global Companies" by Paul Travis. It provides a roundup of some of the global business-technology issues faced by alcoholic beverage producer Diageo (whose brands include Guiness, Harp, Johnnie Walker, and Sterling Vineyards), the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, and Honeywell.

"UPS Has Big Plans For China And The World" by Elena Malykhina. CIO Dave Barnes explains how the big package carrier spends $1 billion a year on IT.

"GM China Awaits RFID" by Paul McDougall. Addons Wu, CIO of General Motors China, says RFID will be a slow go until standards are established.

The issues that drive business, namely the bottom line, also drive higher education. If you don't believe me, just ask your president or provost if they worry about balancing their budget and the answer is a resounding YES. Getting the rest of the institution to think in businesslike terms can be challenging.

Many people who have years of service at a particular school or university frequently bristle at the thought of running their cherished institute like a business. It seems harsh, or cold, un-natural even. The school should be focused on learning, not on making money. Some even think that schools shouldn't make money. The truth is, schools need money, they need to watch the bottom line, and they need to stay in business. We might not have a typical balance sheet, income statement, or cash flow that Fortune 500 companies have, but the same pressures exist. We have competition, we have products that we produce (students with degrees), we have manufacturing (classes)--it's just not as easy for some people to see.

This conference gives me the chance to view my role from another angle, to get a fresh view of how information can be used, can be leveraged, can be an asset that makes my institution better able to continue and grow for the next 125 years. I can take the techniques that UPS or FedEx use in their IT departments, scale them down to my size, and reap similar rewards.

There is place for Higher Education at the InformationWeek Spring and Fall conferences. Maybe in five or 10 years, we'll return the favor and share our insights with the business world.

John Bruggeman
National Director of Information Systems
Hebrew Union College -- Jewish Institute of Religion
http://www.huc.edu
jbruggeman@huc.edu

While this sets the stage for a wrenching family decision, it's also indicative of a fundamental change in the global economy. Where once Indian students came here to study, hoping to get a job and stay, today, they're just as, if not more, likely to earn a degree and return home to a growing economy and IT sector. That's assuming that they bother to come here to study in the first place.

Along these lines, it was interesting to hear UPS's director of Global eCommerce, Beth Matthews, describing the company's "think globally, act locally" strategy of global growth, say that UPS recruits future managers for its growing China operations from Chinese nationals studying at U.S. colleges. Here, too, is a group that not long ago came to this country to get degrees and maybe jobs that would let them stay but now sees growing opportunity back in China. For UPS, it's a pool from which it can get future talent that already has mastered English and been exposed to a U.S. way of life and doing business.

It will be interesting to see over the next few years if the local part of the global equation includes my young Indian neighbor leaving his family to return to the country he left as a child in search of opportunities.

Barnes, who spoke at the InformationWeek Spring Conference on Monday, used himself to illustrate the point. "I've been with the company 27 years and it's easy to get comfortable with the processes you're involved with. You've refined the processes and, you hope, made them world class. So you're happy with them. But that is a trap, and we don't want people to fall into that trap."

That's why UPS encourages employees to constantly challenge the status quo, to believe "there's got to be a better way to do things." And by making it part of the culture, employees don't get defensive when other employees challenge the way things are done. Said Barnes, "This is the best way we've found to constantly improve our processes and the company."

Take large-scale ERP deployments. Guess what? They ain't over, not by a long shot. We in the media may have gotten a little jaded about them, having covered such roll-outs ad nauseum in the lead-up to Y2K and even for some time beyond. But more recently those stories generally have gotten shorter shrift. Been there, done that, right?

Well, not really. The truth seems to be that while companies have made great strides over the years in getting their organizations standardized on big ERP and supply-chain systems, that challenge only intensifies as these companies move ever further into the global arena, with more business being done in new locations, and more acquisitions made across borders, and across cultures. For example, one business-technology leader here told me that his company's SAP roll-out is still some years away from completion on the global stage -- not even counting the time that has to be spent explaining how such software deployments have to take into account regulations like Sarbox to puzzled overseas personnel.

There's a lesson to be learned here, and I think it's not exactly that everything old is new again. Maybe, and more to the point, it's that organizations have taken only the first step on a journey of a thousand miles.

That's not a wholesale recommendation to get rid of everyone who's been in the same position in a business for the last few years. After all, they likely got where they are because they are strong performers. But it is a call to shake up some of those individuals' workday lives, for the good of the business, and their own good, too. "Existing people really do become legacy people," Herbold says, "and they become very protective." Of their systems, processes, self-image, and comfort zone, which prevents them from having a healthy paranoia about the changes that may be overtaking the industry, and spells death to the necessary creativity that drives an organization to push for superior products and services. Herbold recommends personnel rotation as one antidote.

At heart, it comes down to many of the same questions that frame the discussion IT organizations have all the time about systems maintenance versus IT innovation, doesn't it? Sometimes it really is time to trash the old systems, and at other times it's critical to build the bridges to legacy systems that will let you extract value and drive change for today's business. Of course, it's probably a lot harder to do this when you're dealing with people than with cold hard code and systems. But good managers make the tough calls that help create the strategies that change their industry's entire direction. Or else, they're just part of the legacy problem, too.