Wargaming for CIOs Introduction

CEO Europe White Paper

The arrival of game changing technologies like mobile apps, social media, cloud computing and the like have brought forth a new paradigm in the decision making process. In these unique situations and rapidly emerging technological landscape, traditional strategy development tools yield limited results. Wargaming has been a popular tool in the military and off late gaining adoption into business environments.

Business Wargaming is an adaptation of the art of simulating moves and counter-moves in a commercial setting. Unlike military war games, or fantasy war games which go back hundreds of years to the days of Prussia and H.G. Wells, business war games are a relatively recent development, but they are growing rapidly. The time has come for CIO organizations to adopt this technique in order to stay ahead of their challenges.

Wargames can help enable foresight into future scenarios holistically and help build a proactive strategy and a better reactive strategy.

The advent of new types of competitors, with new cost structures from the emerging markets has put pressure on the traditional cost structure of businesses making it challenging to compete in a global economy.

The ever-growing list of new regulations and compliance needs, with many more in the pipeline has complicated the use of technologies further by imposing controls.

In order to embrace the new business reality, CIOs need to look at a new strategy development process which will make decision making realistic at minimal risk. In this paper, we try to define the limitations of conventional IT strategies, a framework to pick the right situations to deploy a Wargame, types and levels of Wargame and finally the design and execution of Wargames. Last but not the least; we touch upon some best practices and pitfalls with respect to Wargaming.

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by 

Nitin Kumar, CMC, CGEIT, CM&AA, CITM

Nitin Kumar is a global executive and management consultant with deep operational experience, has leadership experience in startups, turnarounds and driving exponential growth. Held several executive roles such as Consulting Partner, BU Head, Turnaround CEO, M&A Integration Leader and Start-up CEO focused on strategy, sales, delivery, growth and operational excellence. He has spent several years advising CIOs and CEOs on strategic issues and has enabled decision making through creative approaches to drive and manage growth. He is a certified management consultant, certified in the governance of enterprise IT, a certified M&A Advisor and a certified international turnaround manager.

Renjit Lal, PMP, PAHM

Renjit Lal is a management consultant with more than 18 years of experience in CIO services. During his career he has touched many aspects of IT ranging from strategy, operations, outsourcing, M&A integration and complex transformation. He has held leadership positions in various global IT organizations with operational as well as consultative responsibilities. He has worked with various Fortune 500 customers in US, Europe & Asia Pac and advised them on strategic decision making capabilities with respect to M&A, Regulatory changes and Outsourcing. He is a Project Management Professional as well as a Certified Professional, Academy of Healthcare Management.