Keep useful computing within reach and reason

I lead internal computing at Orelvi Design Computing in Kozhikode. Our colleagues integrate engineering software and support simulation workflows for industrial customers. My 58-person function maintains the applications, workstations and supporting services on which that work depends. I oversee ₹19.8 crore in annual operating expense and an ₹8.4 crore approved capital allocation. The company has 620 employees; its customer engineering judgements sit outside my authority. A functioning environment is necessary for their work, but it does not certify the engineering result.

I began as a programmer in an instrument-service business in 1993. Maintaining applications after their original authors had moved on taught me to value the less visible parts of computing: dependencies, entitlements, retrieval instructions and the practical knowledge held by a support team. At Orelvi I progressed through engineering-computing management and infrastructure leadership before becoming CIO in July 2020. The larger budget has not removed the need to understand a single working session or a single renewal decision.

The examples here concern choices that looked simpler in a purchasing summary than they were in use. We reviewed named subscriptions without assuming that every quiet account could be cancelled. We rebuilt historic toolchains and reported the two that remained blocked. We bought workstations against measured tasks instead of one seniority-based specification. We also retired application interfaces only after consumer owners confirmed how their work would continue. These are decisions about sustaining useful capability while making its cost and limits visible.

Current focus

I am making renewal dates, supported toolchain versions and retirement obligations easier for business owners to understand together. An inexpensive subscription can become costly if its data cannot be recovered; an expensive workstation can be justified by a specific workload without becoming the standard for every employee.

Conversations I welcome

I am preparing for a first external board appointment in a privately held industrial-services or engineering-support business. I can contribute to questions about technology expenditure, service dependence and credible exit planning, subject to employer clearance, conflict review and the actual demands of the role.