IT's link to the business is the top concern among IT executives, according to the results of a recent study from the Society for Information Management (SIM).

SIM polled more than 300 IT leaders for the annual survey about their top concerns, along with budgeting and staffing plans. IT and business alignment remains a perennial issue and captured the top spot in the 2008 survey.

The Top 10 list is as follows:
1. IT and business alignment
2. Build business skills in IT
3. IT strategic planning
4. Attracting new IT professionals
5. Making better use of information
6. Manage change
7. Reduce the cost of doing business
8. Improve IT quality
9. Retain IT professionals
10. Security and privacy

One change from last year is that the response “attracting, developing and retaining IT professionals” was broken out into separate questions to determine which is a higher priority. As you can see, attracting new IT pros is a greater concern for the IT leaders polled than retaining their existing staff.

When you focus on applications and technologies of importance to IT leaders, antivirus protection is tops. Next come business intelligence, continuity planning/disaster recovery, business process management and server virtualization.

SIM will release the results of the complete study, including budgeting and staffing projections for 2009, at its annual SIMposium conference in Orlando in November.

Amy Schurr is the former managing features editor of Network World.