OREANDA-NEWS. October 13, 2011. Moscow Digital October Center hosted the 8th IT Leader Forum which brought together more than two hundred business executives, CIOs and IT Directors from Russian companies, as well as international experts, media representatives and industry analysts. The main theme of the event was Finding Hidden Opportunities for Business Growth and Retaining Efficiency Gains.

In 2011, the IT Leader Forum included three panel discussions, where panelists debated about opportunities for using IT in order to accumulate competitive advantages. The moderators of the Forum were TV host Leonid Parfenov and journalist Ivan Zasursky.

The panelists of Discussion One were Andrey Kelmanzon, Director for Information Technologies, RUSNANO; Vyacheslav Naumov, Head of Information Technology Department, Kimberly-Clark; Boris Bobrovnikov, Director General, CROC; and Andrey Filatov, STG Russia/CIS Leader, IBM Russia and CIS. They discussed business benefits of mobile technologies, as well as the hidden capacity of using information for analytics and forecasting. Andrey Kelmanzon, Director for Information Technologies, RUSNANO, said: "Mobile technology has become an integral part of our lives and work. Business flexibility means mobility, i.e. the ability to work at a convenient time and convenient place. The question is whether an enterprise system has the environment for it or not."

"We live in the age when information is everywhere, and it is critical to use it properly. IT plays a key role in collecting and analyzing the information. Its potential has not been fully exploited yet. I'm happy that we have an opportunity to discuss real-life technology cases at such a prominent business event like the IT Leader Forum," said Vyacheslav Naumov, Head of Information Technology Department, Kimberly-Clark.

During Discussion Two, panelists shared best practices in consumer demand analysis and discussed how to always stay in touch with the clients. Alina Zubekhina, Head of Call Centers, Svyaznoy Group, said: "Call centers are really important for Svyaznoy, as these are efficiency and responsiveness of call centers in communicating with our clients which make the clients begin or and continue their relations with our company. Loyalty programs help to dramatically improve the business efficiency by anticipating the needs of our clients." The panel of the second discussion was joined by Ekaterina Ionova, Head of Internet Sales Administration, MTS Retail; Dmitry Ivannikov, Public Sector Lead, Microsoft Russia; and Maxim Andreev, Head of Business Applications, CROC.

Discussion Three was devoted to business growth in a cash flow deficit environment. Dean Nelson, Senior Director, Global Foundation Services - Ebay Technical Operations addressed attendees via a video interview: "Information technology is not going to go away, ever. No matter what, you are going to have the work which is done and the technology that is deployed. And that's what is going to change. So we'll always have a growing need to find talent that understands the technology. […] Whether it's a cloud or some other technology, you still need the talent that is able to serve this underneath. It's not different in any part of the world, and the investment in technical people is going to have to continue to be there. The markets will continue to be consuming those people. They just need to understand what are the elements today that they really need to focus on; like cloud is hot, Hadoop is hot, and mobile applications are hot. IT professionals that are able to deliver these services will always have a job."

Panelists of the third discussion were: Leonid Scherbakov, Head of Systems Support Department, TNS Gallup Media; Alexander Mikoyan, Managing Director, HP Russia; Gennady Stolyarov, IT Director, DHL; Ruslan Zaedinov, Deputy Director General and Head of Data Centers, CROC; Sergey Karpov, Director General, EMC Russia and CIS. Matt Wood, Technology Evangelist for Amazon Web Services, joined the panel via video conferencing. Experts discussed funding instruments in a cash flow deficit environment and budget optimization approaches, as well as the CIO's role in adopting innovative technology. Leonid Scherbakov, Head of Systems Support Department, TNS Gallup Media, said: "Today information technology certainly plays a key role in the race for market leadership. The number one priority for an executive is to gain competitive advantages through smart data usage and reasonable investments. Successful addressing these issues largely depends on the knowledge of case studies which have proved to be business effective."

"The IT Leader Forum has been there for 8 years now. Every year, it highlights new IT values for the business, raises hot issues for a CIO, and helps avoid bottlenecks in IT projects. Today it is critical to focus not so much on gaining competitive advantages, as on retaining the efficiencies gained during the financial crisis. During each discussion, attendees could gain an insight into analytics and share their experience with Russian or foreign peers," said Gennady Stolyarov, IT Director, DHL.

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