While immediate IT concerns such as PC and network upgrades are important, it's vital for CIOs to keep current with the business trends that affect markets and companies. These trends will inevitably translate into business-side demands that need technology to successfully support them.
For many CIOs, the primary trend today revolves around a continuing and increasing business demand for IT agility, to match the quick pace of business. In an age where business decisions are made in minutes and hours rather than days and weeks, CIOs find themselves looking for ways to make sure that information is available quickly and comprehensively.
"Businesses are calling for more flexible responses, and an IT infrastructure that will allow IT to respond more quickly to changing business requirements and needs," said Andrew Bartels, a research analyst at Forrester Research. "Businesses need to be able to be more nimble and react more quickly, and CIOs will be looking for technologies that allow IT to do that."
SOA becomes a way of life
Bartels said CIOs should concentrate on what he calls foundational technologies that will bring adaptability to their company, as well as set them up for the next generation of technology. He divides those technologies into three pillars: service-oriented architecture (SOA), server virtualisation and unified communications, which use IP networks to unify voice and computing communications.
The enthusiasm with which CIOs have embraced SOA is emblematic of the corporate emphasis on business agility, said Kavin Moody, executive director of the Center for Information Management Studies.
"People don't even talk SOA anymore because they're doing it," Moody said. "It's part of a series of things behind an architectural approach that supports agility as well as efficiency."
Applications such as a status inquiry tool built with SOA components allow both customers and internal employees instant access to the details surrounding a particular job, from whether the decals for the truck have arrived to where the truck is on the assembly line.
Collaborative technologies show potential
Also of interest for CIOs are the collaborative technologies found in Web 2.0 tools such as wikis and collaborative software. "It's on everybody's radar screen, but they're still trying to figure out where and how to use it," Moody said.
These technologies will allow companies to build a foundation for next-generation technologies, which will help companies move from their present focus on improving business processes to optimising the business results. "It's not about making things more efficient, but about having a business objective and being able to assemble the software and process components, combine them with analytics and vertical industry knowledge to build an immediate solution," Bartels said.
Moody said the interest in making the IT infrastructure more responsive is an important step in getting to that next generation. "CIOs are laying the groundwork for that, and it's evolving at a nice pace," he says. "IT architectures are becoming more responsive and less of a bottleneck, which gives companies the agility to make innovation happen."