OREANDA-NEWS. The 10th IT Leader Forum, a landmark event for IT professionals and industry experts, was held in Moscow on October 10, 2013. More than 300 guests attended the event and the special guest was Steve Wozniak, Apple co-founder and a legendary computer designer and engineer.

Steve Wozniak had a Q&A session with the forum host - Mikhail Berger, Director General of RUMEDIA Group (BFM Portal, Business FM Radio) that was devoted to “IT as a Source of Inspiration during Economic Uncertainty” He shared his views on employee motivation: “I think it is a much better to let employees build something of their own design: they are going to work so hard and develop their mental approaches to designing new products and services. It will be of an even greater benefit to the company and will help foster entrepreneurship within a corporate culture,” says Steve Wozniak, the IT Leader Forum special guest.

The session with Steve Wozniak was followed by two discussions. The first discussion was devoted to IT strategy development in an unfavorable economic environment. Panelists discussed whether it makes sense to invest in innovation during an economic crisis and how to control project execution and analyze deliverables. “It is a major mistake to cut IT investment during a crisis. Indeed, it should even be increased because IT can drive up productivity. Therefore, the IT budget should be the most protected,” says Mircea Mihaescu, Director of Sberbank IT Strategy Division.

During the second discussion session, panelists classified the pros and cons of advanced technologies and trends such as big data, BYOD, private clouds and gamification and analyzed how they can help to launch new services. Panelists of the second discussion session were top managers from companies which were established or have grown during the previous slump. “Tinkoff Credit Systems Bank still grew - even in 2008-2009 despite the general recession - by attracting third-party financing and increasing its customer base which now exceeds 3.5 million people. I think that the key factors were the right management initiatives and the course towards high technology. We continue this policy today in the context of present risks. For example, we are now using big data more extensively, changing established IT outsourcing models and doing our best to increase productivity through greater employee freedom and entrepreneurial culture,” said Vyacheslav Tsyganov, CIO and Vice President, Tinkoff Credit Systems.

“Our company was established back in 2009 during the crisis. Information technology has played an important role in jump-starting and in further development of the company. Thanks to the strategic decision to use clouds and services, we've avoided unreasonably lengthy and capital-intensive projects while enjoying a flexible, easy-to-manage and scalable platform with absolutely transparent budget controls. I think that this is the only right way to create an operational technology infrastructure in the context of high uncertainty and crisis,” says Maxim Yanpolsky, Partner, Third Rome Investment Company.

The organizers of the IT Leader Forum are the Russian Managers Association, Itogi Magazine, Intelligent Enterprise Magazine, CROC Company, and iBusiness portal.