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I believe this situation is pretty much here to stay -- IT cost-effectiveness will remain high on the management agenda of most companies for the foreseeable future. I don't believe this is all bad news for IT teams -- it may even be a significant step towards a more truly effective use of IT.
The current environment has been created by 2 inter-related trends and only one of those may change soon. The more transient trend is the global economic slowdown, which has cut all business budgets and hugely decreased the number of new initiatives, IT or otherwise. There is cautious optimism in some quarters that the economy may be slowly recovering.
Whilst a prevailing wind might be imminent, the IT industry "sailboat" has taken some pretty heavy damage and won't recover the pace we saw in the 80's and 90's. Our industry has finally come of age in the business world and the IT enthusiasm and optimism which was indulged by many business execs now has to defer to longstanding principles like "bottom-line improvement," "measurable benefits" and "value for money."
The most successful CIOs will be those who embrace this new era -- actually it's where most other business functions have been for some time. The fact is that some technology prices have tumbled and many IT products are delivering more for less. It's also true that many companies have bought products which have not even been deployed let alone been shown to deliver any return on investment. CIOs have now learnt to be better purchasers and tougher negotiators and that capability will stand them in good stead.
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