A study on the current market scenario on the concept of thought leadership. An overview of how industry market leaders like HCL are investing resources and evolving the idea of thought leadership in today's competitive landscape.

1. No Mercy – NMIMS, Mumbai
Abhishek Goyal | Mohit Gaur | Ravinder Kumar | Tushar Nayanam
IMI Launchpad
‘14

2. Agenda
Competitor
Analysis
Best Industry
Practices
Marketing
Campaign
LinkedIn
Strategy
Next Gen Idea

3. Thought Leadership
What is it ?
• Thought Leadership is delivering the answers to the
biggest questions on the minds of your target
audience.
• Content that is recognized by others as innovative,
covering trends and topics that influence an industry.
• Important in B2B context because of the complexity
and length of the decision-making process
• Thought Leadership can come from any source –
executives, customers, product managers, designers,
customer service reps, sales people.
Benefits
• Thought leadership start with brand affinity. You allow
your audience to get to know and position your
company as an industry leader.
• Thought leadership pieces are published in various
channels which brings readers into the social
audience.
• Google seems to be rewarding, above all, quality
content and TL content offers high value to the
readers. Thus SEO optimization becomes easy.
How does a thought leader influences people ?

4. Competitor Analysis
• Monthly publications
• “Centre for the Edge” in Australia, China, Netherlands, and United
States
• Centres promote recognition of industry sector leadership and
enhances client and target relationship
Deloitte
ITSMA Diamond
Award in 2012
• “RedBooks” Installation and implementation experiences, typical
solution scenarios
• “Redpapers” Shorter technical papers that are only available on the Web
• Sector specific conferences such as Automobile, Banking for showcasing
technical domain expertise
IBM
ITSMA Diamond
Award in 2010
• Green IT Thought Leadership
• Company experts discuss the benefits of green initiatives, alternative
sources of energy, virtualization and energy-efficient devices
• Publications on Green IT' Briefings
Infosys
ITSMA Gold Award in
2013

5. Analysis of Competitors
• Platform for C-level executives to interact, share thoughts and experiences around
the changing role of IT
• “IT Insights” Magazine
British Telecom
ITSMA Gold
Award in 2012
• Focus on SMAC (Social, Media, Analytics, Cloud)
• Digital Security Labs : Innovative security solutions using the latest and the best
technologies
• “Centre of Excellence” for intellectual properties and best practices
Cognizant
ITSMA Gold
Award in 2011
• Consulting thought leadership about Digital transformation in conjunction with
MIT
• Digital Transformation Review magazine
• Creation of Digital Transformation Research Institute
Capgemini
ITSMA Gold
Award in 2010

6. Best Practices- CIO Straight Talk
Country Specific
• Panel discussions on
futuristic IT trends
• CIOs and Faculty from
Premier academic
institutes would be panel
members
• IITs in India; MIT,
Stanford in USA;
Cambridge, Oxford in UK
Categories in Website- CIO
Toolkit
• IT Strategy
• E-Business
• IT Governance
• Enterprise Architecture
• IT Sourcing
These groups will serve as
interest based groups
Whitepapers
•Include CIO white papers on
website from the members to
serve as a guide
• Leveraging existing library
of HCL white papers on CIO
straight talk website to
strengthen leadership of HCL
Recommendations for the Website
• Complete profile of CIOs on the website including their twitter handle and blog name
• Choice of selecting articles on the basis of most read, most shared, most commented and latest
• CIO Store: Online course and Certifications on IT Strategy, IT Governance, E-business and Enterprise Architecture
• Additional dropdown for Company name and designation apart from Author’s name dropdown
•Provision of rating the articles on the website by registered members

7. Green IT Thought Leadership: Publications on Sustainability based IT
enabled solutions and Energy efficient methods of deploying IT
infrastructure
Podcasts: Weekly podcasts for on the transit consumption. Video
Interviews : Monthly video interviews of CIOs with maximum number of
article submissions
Focus on whitepapers and podcasts which have better Technology aspects
and minimal focus on products for generating better quality of insights
Mailing List Subscription for sending updates about newly published
articles & Suggest relevant articles on the basis of reading history
*Bloom Group report on Thought Leadership, 2010 Channel
Not Problem
Solving
Product
Orientation
Length &
Misleading
Webcasts Moderate Highest Moderate
Podcasts Highest Lowest Lowest
IT Videos Moderate Moderate Moderate
White
Papers
Lowest Moderate Highest
Best Practices- CIO Straight Talk
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Whitepapers
Webcasts
Podcasts
IT Videos
Not problem solving focus
Product Orientation
Technical discussion
Misleading title
Too long
Never disappointed
Leveraging Podcasts channel
• Use of free Podcast tools like Odigo where bloggers can turn their
readers into listeners. Odigo transforms your blog posts into high
quality and ad-supporting broadcasts.
• Collaborating with The New York Times Tech Talk for featured
podcasts
• Communities support multiple contributors podcasting through
simplified processes, and without having to host their own individual
feeds

8. @ciostraighttalk @ciomagazine
@ciostraighttalk @ciomagazine @ciostraighttalk

9. Best SEO Practices for Straight Talk
Keyword
Straight Talk
Position
First Result Keywords Optimized
CIO Talk 2nd Page
http://www.CIOtalkradio.com/
CIO training, role of CIO, CIO today, CIO
information, CIO technology, CIO podcasts, CIO
podcast
CIO
Community
Not in first 5 pages http://www.CIOcommunity.org/
CIO, CTO, CDO, CMO, mobile, cloud, mobile social,
big data, BYOD, apps, applications, storage
CIO
Magazine
Not present in the
first 5 pages
http://www.CIOinsight.com/
Enterprise, technology news, opinions
CIO Blogs
Not present in the
first 5 pages
www.CIO.com/blogs
CIO, CIO blog, Chief Information Officer, IT
Strategy, IT Strategies
CIO
Whitepapers
Not present in the
first 5 pages
http://www.tcs.com/resources/whit
e_papers/Pages/Perspectives-
Volume-3.aspx
Consulting, IT innovation, Enterprise collaboration,
Enterprise 2.0, IT Strategy, IT efficiency, Business
Intelligence, Corporate Culture, Business IT
Alignment, Cloud Computing

10. Marketing Campaign
Focus Areas for Marketing Campaign
Articles, Videos, Webinars, Podcasts, Events & ConferencesContent Consumption
• Figure out what & from where they read i.e. understand how they consume
• Understand what they follow & accordingly Build Marketing Strategy
Rich content backed with dataBuild Library of Material
• Convert your work from one format to another (i.e. a blog post to a video/summary of a report into a
podcast)
• Better than creating fresh content always and integrate all channels of communications
Engage InfluencersBe-Proactive
• Look for new avenues and ways to engage the G2000 business and IT leaders

11. Significance
Higher class of material – aimed to ensure company’s association with a given service or
issue. There’s much less of this around, because it’s much harder to produce
Go-to-Market Strategy
Category Specific publications – e-Business, Enterprise Architecture, IT governance
Open participation in webinars & communicating via social media e.g. Twitter & LinkedIn
Significance
Active engagement, guiding & co-creating unique content & perspective—backed by both results,
conviction and authority Go-to-Market Strategy
Short videos of past events, conferences and research methodology to be shared on social media and
company channels showcasing rich content to G2000 leaders
Content Consumption
Interactive Content
Significance
Constant Brand Reminders - To keep a firm in its clients’ minds and to demonstrate that firm
has expertise in a given field
Go-to-Market Strategy
Blogs – Awareness via influential bloggers network
Website – SEO optimization for better online visibility, subscription based service for trial
period
Magazine – Academic and corporate collaboration for rich content generation

12. Library of Material & Proactive Approach
Significance
Creation of high quality content, creating a comprehensive repository
Go-to-Market-Strategy
Inviting content from IT leaders & Recognizing them for contribution, Share it on online & offline channels
StraightTalk Library– “Create, Share, Empower”
StraightTalk Proactive - “Where Leaders Co-Create”
StraightTalk Diaries
Start a concept of experience sharing in form of publishing diaries
Retired and existing leaders to share Problem Solving cases and troubleshooting challenges in their career
Social Media
Weekly Talk – Open a theme for discussion on linkedIn – members can share articles, views on latest topics,
Final discussion to be closed by a successful domain expert e.g. Data Analytics in Hospitals
Referrals
Encourage current community members to bring more IT leaders of tomorrow through referral program

13. COMMUNITY
EVANGELISM
CONSIDERATION
VALUE REALIZED
AWARENESS
LOYALTY
ACTION
Thought Leadership – Engagement & Metrics
PROSPECTS
CUSTOMERS
Development Around Industry - On Site
& Off Site engagement
Events, conferences, blogs, targeted emails
& Discussion forums
Webinar, White Paper, Key publication
Community Membership, Step by Step “How to”
guides, Training videos
Sharing of Best Industry Practices
Superior business performance by increased
Contribution & Involvement in community
Referrals, Creating Content &
Recognition
Need for programmatic approach to thought leadership versus executing a series of webinars or events
by
• Creating a thought leadership index score
• Measuring key webpage visits, email CTR, video views, webinars attendance, filling out a form for white papers, etc
• Engagement graph

14. LinkedIn Group : Closed or Open ?
Closed. (Members only group)
 Least moderation required due to reduced spam
 Exclusivity in LinkedIn groups brings supremacy which directly signifies the level of importance a community holds
 Quality content guaranteed
 Information in a closed group is not indexed by the search engines; helps in providing confidentiality to the member’s opinions
 Authentic discussions and value-added insights in these groups help successfully build more thought leaders.
LinkedIn Strategy
Increasing Member’s Engagement on LinkedIn
Use LinkedIn polls application to get feedback
from members on how the group features and
functionality could be improved
Help members in connecting outside of LinkedIn through local
chapter meets, arranging a dinner or meet at an industry conference
Enable members promote their service offerings
through LinkedIn subgroup facility & not directly
spam/fill the group
Facilitating knowledge sharing sessions among members
via Webinar, Video Conferencing, Conference calls
Formation of research
groups funded by large
organizations

15. Positioning CIO Straight Talk LinkedIn community among our target audience
LinkedIn Strategy
Product
People
Promotion
Award winning global CIO engagement platform i.e ITSMA Diamond Award in “Excellence in thought
leadership”
Connect with the IT leaders, get access to rich knowledge and know best practices across the globe
LinkedIn community complemented by other channels like Magazine, Industry events, Webinars etc.
CIOStraightTalk LinkedIn community has the distinction of maximum percentage of director level and
above IT professionals viz-a-viz other CIO communities.
Digital community of 1700+ leaders on LinkedIn
Channelizing LinkedIn community promotions through industry opinion leaders and influencers like GH
Rao, President, Engineering and R&D Services, HCL Technologies
Run targeted ads within LinkedIn to promote the group

16. Increase CIO participation in the Magazine
 Awards and recognition for the best articles in 3 categories
I. Influential II. Innovative III. Intellectual
 Devising content themes around latest technological trends and help CIO’s keep updated with latest developments
 Increasing frequency to quarterly magazine editions instead of annual and bi-annual editions
LinkedIn Strategy
Speaker - Theoretical + Practical Fusion
 Bringing academia experts (from prestigious institutions like IITs, MIT, Harvard, Oxford) & corporate experts (from leading
technology providers) together in various events and webinars targeted at building domain knowledge in a closed setting
Attendee – Word of Mouth
 Association with academic and research institutions for inviting attendees and leveraging on their professional network
through word of mouth
Improving speaker and attendee profiles in events and webinars

17. Functional
• Driving operational excellence
• Driving the shape of IT infrastructure
• Driving applications portfolio, your
sourcing and partner strategy
The BIG IDEA – “CDO”Being a CIO does not mean you are the
“Chief Digital Officer” by default
Business Transformation
• Sitting & strategizing with CXOs
• Mapping out business plans
• Turning B-Plans into IT roadmaps
and investments
Why a CDO?
• The era of big data and analytics has arrived, and with it a
new leader is emerging—the Chief Digital Officer, or CDO.
• High performing organizations realize the need for an
executive business leader to across the C-suite to accelerate
innovation and transformation.
• Increasing importance of enterprise digital assets
• Understanding impact of new digital technologies and
business models
• Sharing that knowledge with stakeholders
• Such innovation can then be injected into new products and
business approaches
Digital doesn’t just transform IT, it transforms the whole business
Background
Strategy Planning & Business Development Roles
Marketing & e-Commerce Specialists
Handful have background in IT Leadership
2050 IT leaders
18% i.e. 1 in 5
act as organization’s CDO
2013
Gartner
CIO
Survey
Since Jan’13
200+
CDOs have been appointed
CIO
Roles

18. CDO Talent Map
• Chart Includes all those who
currently hold or previously held
title for CDO at major
organization for atleast 1 year
• YoY increment in number CDOs
worldwide is 100%
• The figure to triple by end of
2014 since more CDO’s will be
taking on the CDO role as well
Top 10 Countries with most CDOs

19. Leapfrog to Top League
CDO straight talk – Straight Talk Brand Extension
Next Generation Thought Leadership Program
CDO
CTO
CIO
Benefits
• More companies revising their vision for
Digital – it being a ubiquitous Channels
• Existing Community for CDO’s : CDO
Club (http://cdoclub.com/)
• CDOs are well-seasoned, veteran,
professional leaders and business builders
with digital DNA who have P&L
responsibility and backgrounds in General
Management
 Give Straight Talk a complete vision to be a leading
next generation community in thought leadership
 Increased network of C-Suite executives, IT leaders
and a better global outlook
 Differentiating factor – Stand out from current
thought leadership communities
 Guidance and opportunity for CIOs to enter a
whole new career path for themselves -
organizations where the leadership hasn’t taken a
decisive view on where the accountability for
digital should lie
 “High Demand and Low Supply” of digital talent –
Help the community understand the ways and
means to groom digital talent
 Targeting CDOs conferences and Strategy Summits
which features current CDOs from different
sectors.

20. THANK
YOU