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Guna Rajendran

1:1 Leadership Insight

🧠 ThinkSpace Synthesis Memo

Guna Rajendran, Deputy CIO (Synoptek) – 1:1 Executive Insight

Facilitated by Beyond | May 9, 2025 | Duration: In-person 1:1, ~60 minutes

👥 Who Was in the Room?

Guna Rajendran oversees Synoptek’s full-service IT engagement with CSN. With 28 years of technology leadership in gaming and manufacturing, he brings both scale thinking and hands-on systems knowledge. Since joining in 2020, Guna has modernized the IT operations model, led a significant application rationalization, and worked to implement ITIL practices and asset lifecycle discipline. This session focused on remaining structural barriers and readiness for enterprise-wide acceleration.

🎯 What We Set Out to Do

The purpose of this session was to reflect on progress made across CSN’s IT modernization program, identify ongoing bottlenecks—especially around governance and funding—and surface near-term priorities that could unlock greater responsiveness. Guna provided both a strategic and operational lens on the systems still in flux and the decision-making models that shape what gets implemented.

🔍 What We Heard

What’s Working

  • We’ve gone from 308 applications to 130—that’s huge simplification

  • We’ve moved to ServiceNow, ITIL, and real asset management—much more mature

  • We support ~40,000 users with 48 onsite staff, 12 remote L1 agents, and 15–20 global support engineers

  • Five of the seven 2019 roadmap items are done; one is halfway, and one is still unclear

What’s Not

  • PeopleSoft is a shared NSHE instance—we can’t move fast or customize

  • Governance is still a gap—business units don’t want to own prioritization

  • The 130 apps we still have are too many for a lean support model

  • We compete with the casinos for talent—it’s tough to keep people

🧭 Where We Go From Here

Governance & Decision Rights

The absence of business-side ownership continues to slow decision-making and inhibit accountability. Working groups are emerging as a tool to structure demand management, but adoption is inconsistent. Guna sees this as the primary blocker to strategic IT execution.

Platform and Process Simplification

Reducing the application portfolio has created space, but continued consolidation is needed. Guna is advocating for a rapid application development platform to replace long build cycles for forms, workflows, and internal tools—without adding new tech debt.

Funding Clarity and Roadmapping

Of the seven original IT assessment goals, the only area still marked “unknown” is funding and cost modeling. Without this, strategic investments remain subject to episodic decisions rather than long-term planning. This will need to be addressed for sustained maturity.

Talent and Delivery Model

CSN’s IT staffing model is robust on paper but fragile in practice due to turnover and regional competition. Casinos offer higher salaries, forcing CSN to differentiate via culture, growth pathways, and flexibility. Multi-campus geography also adds cost and complexity to support.

🌱 Strategic Opportunities

  • Build Demand Governance with Teeth: Formalize and reinforce working groups to own prioritization decisions and champion transparency

  • Push Toward Application Acceleration: Secure investment in a lightweight internal forms/workflow/doc platform to avoid six-month dev cycles

  • Make the Case for PeopleSoft Flexibility: Explore options to lobby NSHE or model the cost of a CSN-controlled instance

  • Design for Talent Stickiness: Pair competitive benefits with flexible models, local partnerships, and clear career ladders to retain staff

  • Reimagine Multi-Campus Support: Pilot solutions like rotating on-call coverage, regional tech closets, or smart telepresence kits to reduce overhead

✅ What Happens Next?

  • This memo will inform both strategic and operational recommendations across CSN’s transformation program. Guna’s insight will shape governance design, talent strategy, and future-state platform investments. Beyond will continue to test assumptions around business readiness and help align tools and staffing with CSN’s multi-campus complexity and speed-to-value goals.