Horizons expanding for IT execs, says forum speaker

CIOs and IT managers should prepare to spend more time in the boardroom and on the road with marketing executives as increasing amounts of digital information, security requirements and tighter integration with all aspects of business are changing the way they must approach their jobs.

That was the message from IDC’s chief research officer, John Gantz, on Friday in a keynote address at the IDC IT Forum & Expo in Boston. Globalization and technology are quickly driving change in the IT industry, Gantz said, noting examples like Google’s planned 30-acre server farm and IBM’s “office” in the virtual world Second Life.

The number of devices in the hands of consumers – from cameras and cell phones to personal computers – is expected to double between 2006 and 2010 – and the amount of digital information IT organizations must handle is expected to grow six times larger in the same span, Gantz said. With pictures, videos and e-mail attachments, more than two-thirds of this information is created by consumers, yet businesses will be responsible for some 85% of the data. And more than 90% of the information is unstructured, forcing IT organizations to come up with new ways of identifying files.

“Somewhere at the intersection of content, information and IT the realm of the CIO expands a little,” he said.

Security vulnerabilities in IT have increased sixfold since 2000, and with businesses now expected to publicly report data breaches, IT managers can expect to spend more time in the boardroom and see their responsibility migrate outward, into more aspects of the organization, he said.

IT and business services are increasingly becoming intertwined, Gantz said. CIOs have to handle more signals and transactions, and increasingly support mobile and broadband customers, putting IT in the direct line of an enterprise’s revenue stream.

Instead of the “smiles and handshakes” of salespeople, IT executives are now becoming the face of a company, Gantz argued. IT staff are also being embedded within other departments, like payroll, research and development, and manufacturing.

“There are some organizations where CIOs are on the road with marketing people more often than they are in the office,” he said.

Some argue that IT can no longer provide a sustainable competitive advantage, because technology is available to anyone, Gantz said. However, IT organizations can create a “series of temporary advantages” by quickly responding to change, he said.

“You should expect to see a lot more scrutiny of IT and how flexible it is,” Gantz said.