Insight From This Year's IW 500 Shows Shifting Role Of The CIO And Technology Adoption

(Source: R Wang & Software Insider POV, Copyright © 2009  All rights reserved.)

Lots of lessons learned amidst the celebration of the leading innovators in IT at the Information Week 500.  In conversations with CIOs these past days, a few trends have emerged:

• Companies less loyal to existing investments and vendors. Because budgets remain tight and drive most investment priorities, CIO's are now open to new ideas that reduce operating costs -- even if this means replacing existing investments.  CIO's and IT leaders no longer hesitant to move away from established investments.  Conversations with a IW500 financial services CIO put it quite clear, "I don't care how long we've used the stuff.  If it's cheaper, I'm open to it.  Better and faster would be nice too"
• Economic conditions put SaaS and cloud computing top of mind. CIO's and IT leaders find new service offerings with faster deployment times, lower operating costs, or significant impact to the business users more attractive .  The adoption and interest has past the tipping point.   As one IW500 manufacturing CIO put it, "All the new stuff is going to be on SaaS.  The business wants it and we embrace it, even when our existing vendors tell us they will build that in the future.  We don't have time to wait"
• Realization that the CIO role continues to evolve. SaaS adoption now allows employees and business units make decisions on their own.  CIO's must still find ways to secure these applications and ensure seamless integration.  Some CIO's seek a single integrated approach, but most realize that their role has changed. A IW500 pharma CIO notes," My role has changed from large ERP implementations or enterprise wide SOA to more vendor management, hybrid integration, and application development."

Your POV
What are your organizations doing? Are you seeing similar trends?  Post your comment here or reach me direct at r at altimetergroup dot com or r at softwareinsider dot org.
Copyright © 2009 R Wang. All rights reserved.