OREANDA-NEWS. November 16, 2009. The Sixth Annual IT Leader Forum was held in Moscow. The Forum brought together over 300 CIOs and IT directors from major Russian businesses, as well as recognized international experts, the mass media, and industry analysts. The theme of the Forum was "Innovations During Periods of Cost-Cutting", a hot topic in today's challenging environment.

The Plenary Session included presentations by Roger McLoughlin (Continuity & Risk Authority, Vodafone), Ronald Loos (Director of Technology and Operations, Grubb & Ellis Management Services), Alexander Kudryashov (Director of Enterprise Planning and Efficiency Management Department, Integra), Boris Bobrovnikov (Director General, CROC), Sergey Karpov (Director General, EMC Russia and CIS), and James Michael Ansley (EMEA Vice President and General Manager, 3Com).

Dmitry Inshakov (IT director, PricewaterhouseCoopers Russia), the host of the Plenary Session noted: "Implementation of innovative solutions in today's economic environment is anything but a simple task. However, solutions and innovations which are aimed at improving business efficiency, reducing risks, and OPEX optimization will help companies survive the crisis and its after-effects and gain a competitive advantage. The IT Leader Forum is a unique opportunity to exchange opinions on how to achieve a greater return on innovation. Dialogue between senior managers of IT vendors and systems integrators, as well as foreign and Russian CIOs,  allow us to consider all these matters from a wide range of different perspectives."

During Breakout Sessions, the Forum attendees discussed issues related to personal data protection, business continuity, and innovation implementation.

"Personal data protection is of great interest at this time. As is well known, all personal data operators in Russia must ensure regulatory compliance of their systems with Federal Law No. 152 before January 01, 2010. Although little time remains, many questions related to compliance with the new personal data protection law remain unanswered. Meanwhile, different personal data operators are adopting different approaches. As a result, such events help fill in the ‘information vacuum’ and allow people to share their views and hands-on experience in addressing the wide range of issues that the industry is currently facing. For example, for some time now Raiffeisenbank has been working to ensure  compliance with the personal data protection law and, in my opinion, it is very useful to share our experience in this area," said Oleg Skorodumov, Head of Methodology and Project Management Department, Information Security Administration, Raiffeisenbank.

"The new financial environment has forced many companies to reevaluate their business continuity strategies. DPD Russia is no exception to this trend and we pay significant attention to this subject. Today, business continuity and business contingency plans are not only a must but a competitive advantage. Nobody wants to cooperate with a company that cannot ensure continuous operation. Furthermore, ensuring business continuity is one of the approaches to forming a justified IT budget. Certainly, today it is much harder to advance in this area than it was before. For example, not every company can now afford to deploy a comprehensive data center. As an alternative, backup systems can be outsourced to a third-party site," commented Elena Shadrina, Director of IT department, DPD Russia.

Dmitry Milov, Director for Enterprise IT Solution Implementation, MTS said: "The current economic situation should be treated as an opportunity for companies to rise to prominence by adopting innovative business solutions. Ultimately, end customers are unconcerned with the difficulties faced by companies to provide services. The main priority is maximum service quality - something which, today, is impossible to achieve without the use of innovative IT and business solutions."

The organizers of the IT Leader Forum are the Russian Managers Association, CROC incorporated, and Itogi, CIO, and Intelligent Enterprise Magazines.