Job Thomas
Managing Partner & CIO
In an exclusive interaction with CEO Insights, Job Thomas elucidates more about his professional journey and Virtual CIO Consulting Services.
Throw some light on your professional background and experiences. What drives you today?
I have had a diverse professional career where I worked with small, large and startup enterprises before starting Virtual CIO Consulting Services in Hyderabad. Though I wasn’t professionally qualified for taking up the IT function in those organizations, I was lucky to have mentors right from the beginning of my career who have guided me for the initial 15 years of my career. Respectively, having built confidence in my capabilities, now I keep obtaining the right skills required to excel in my field. Today, I can easily a apt to new circumstances and navigate through challenges.
Well, it is the passion for sharing the knowledge acquired during my career and new learnings, with SMEs that are constrained by resources (financial & human) to adopt digital transformation that drives me, as I strive to help them have a competitive advantage
and survive the current market conditions.
How would you define Virtual CIO Consulting Services as an organization and its current position in the market?
Virtual Virtual CIO Consulting Services is an IT Services & IT Consulting company that exercises as a Virtual CIO for diverse businesses across industries. Past ten years our organization has been in consulting roles that has led to digitization, digitalization and digital transformation of few SME’s. We are uniquely placed in the market where we function as an extended arm of our client organization providing them with required digital interventions at a reasonable cost.
How are you adapting to the latest tools/ technologies to revolutionize your services to be at par with current industry standards?
Reading articles from the net. Subscribing to Newsletters. Enrolling in courses both class room and online. Participating in LinkedIn Groups. Meeting and discussing with service providers. Attending webinars and seminars. Discussing with peers.
Tell us about your leadership and governance approach. What is your success mantra?
Encourage subordinates to take risks, leading by example. Create an environment to support innovation. Delegate more responsibility and authority to sub ordinates.Take responsibility when things go wrong and always give credit to them when goals are achieved. The organization is paramount to individuals hence do not compromise on integrity and honesty. Always follow the code of business conduct and ensure others are not deviating from it.
My mantra has always been excellence without perfection. This mantra helps to fail fast and recognize failure as a big component of success.
Reflect on some of the major challenges you have encountered so far. How did you
Over come them?
Well, there were many and to mention some, I would like to start with when there was an instance of right sizing by the new boss, I indulged in screening the team with HR’s help and repositioned them as per their potential in the company, and outside. Built capability through outsourcing which became a norm across other regions. Also, while working for a startup I had the opportunity to sign an MOU with a
How would you define Virtual CIO Consulting Services as an organization and its current position in the market?
Virtual Virtual CIO Consulting Services is an IT Services & IT Consulting company that exercises as a Virtual CIO for diverse businesses across industries. Past ten years our organization has been in consulting roles that has led to digitization, digitalization and digital transformation of few SME’s. We are uniquely placed in the market where we function as an extended arm of our client organization providing them with required digital interventions at a reasonable cost.
How are you adapting to the latest tools/ technologies to revolutionize your services to be at par with current industry standards?
Reading articles from the net. Subscribing to Newsletters. Enrolling in courses both class room and online. Participating in LinkedIn Groups. Meeting and discussing with service providers. Attending webinars and seminars. Discussing with peers.
Tell us about your leadership and governance approach. What is your success mantra?
Encourage subordinates to take risks, leading by example. Create an environment to support innovation. Delegate more responsibility and authority to sub ordinates.Take responsibility when things go wrong and always give credit to them when goals are achieved. The organization is paramount to individuals hence do not compromise on integrity and honesty. Always follow the code of business conduct and ensure others are not deviating from it.
My mantra has always been excellence without perfection. This mantra helps to fail fast and recognize failure as a big component of success.
Reflect on some of the major challenges you have encountered so far. How did you
Over come them?
Well, there were many and to mention some, I would like to start with when there was an instance of right sizing by the new boss, I indulged in screening the team with HR’s help and repositioned them as per their potential in the company, and outside. Built capability through outsourcing which became a norm across other regions. Also, while working for a startup I had the opportunity to sign an MOU with a
large telecom provider for extending a VAS service to their broadband customers. Though we couldn’t achieve commercial viability, we convinced the authorities that we will be able to scale up. This helped to stretch the engagement at least to salvage the bank guarantee submitted. Next, while managing the PMO for an e-Governance project, the client was not able to get their payments as the processes were very stringent. We could augment the team and provide the required documentation to put the project back on track and clear the outstanding amount.
What would you say are the top ingredients to the success of a CIO?
Having the knowledge of the business processes and competition landscape irrespective of the organization’s domain. Should possess the capability to provide the vision of how IT will drive the business by maintaining strong relationships with C-suite and being a trusted advisor to the Line of Business managers. Apart from this, articulating the tangible and intangible benefits of the IT investments with numbers to the CFO & CEO is critical. They should proactively ensure a process for evaluating innovation opportunities for creating value and growth for the business. Keep learning about emerging technologies. These are key to the collective growth of teams, organization, and stakeholders.
Job Thomas, Managing Partner & CIO, Virtual CIO Consulting Services
Have around four decades of professional experience in the IT domain both as an employee and an entrepreneur. Driving overall IT Strategy & IT Operations inclusive of defining the IT roadmap, budgeting, technology evaluation & evangelization, building scalable applications on cloud and execution of multi-million dollar, multilocation projects. Also volunteering for community building of MSME’s and research in sustainable development goals.
•Hobbies:Reading, Writing, Managing a YouTube channel 'A Minute to Know IT'
•Favorite Cuisine: Indian
•Favorite Book: In Search of Excellence by Robert H. Waterman Jr. and Tom Peters
•Favorite Travel Destination: Goa
•Awards & Recognition: Data Centre Summits & Awards 2017 for Innovation and New Initiatives, Community Leadership Award 2020 from Confederation of Indian Micro Small and Medium Enterprises
What would you say are the top ingredients to the success of a CIO?
Having the knowledge of the business processes and competition landscape irrespective of the organization’s domain. Should possess the capability to provide the vision of how IT will drive the business by maintaining strong relationships with C-suite and being a trusted advisor to the Line of Business managers. Apart from this, articulating the tangible and intangible benefits of the IT investments with numbers to the CFO & CEO is critical. They should proactively ensure a process for evaluating innovation opportunities for creating value and growth for the business. Keep learning about emerging technologies. These are key to the collective growth of teams, organization, and stakeholders.
Job Thomas, Managing Partner & CIO, Virtual CIO Consulting Services
Have around four decades of professional experience in the IT domain both as an employee and an entrepreneur. Driving overall IT Strategy & IT Operations inclusive of defining the IT roadmap, budgeting, technology evaluation & evangelization, building scalable applications on cloud and execution of multi-million dollar, multilocation projects. Also volunteering for community building of MSME’s and research in sustainable development goals.
•Hobbies:Reading, Writing, Managing a YouTube channel 'A Minute to Know IT'
•Favorite Cuisine: Indian
•Favorite Book: In Search of Excellence by Robert H. Waterman Jr. and Tom Peters
•Favorite Travel Destination: Goa
•Awards & Recognition: Data Centre Summits & Awards 2017 for Innovation and New Initiatives, Community Leadership Award 2020 from Confederation of Indian Micro Small and Medium Enterprises