A number of leading business publications conducting recent surveys with CEOs reported that increased revenue growth, improved market differentiation, and enhanced customer satisfaction / experience were the main concerns /initiatives for the core business in 2008. I am a little confused as to why emphasis on these subject matters was not mentioned in your surveys. The effective utilization of data, technology, and process has significant impact on market performance and revenue development.

We are entering a challenging economic period; given that I would think there would be some interest in properly leveraging these resources to accelerate market growth and generate new revenue streams for the core business. A number of the initiatives being considered can be outsourced. By putting more emphasis on outsourcing IT leadership is better positioned to address the revenue side of the business...which creates the opportunity to have larger IT budgets and access to more internal capital.

David Soley

I work in education where complexity and cost have been serious problems for many years. If you want to escape complexity and cost, migrate to GNU/Linux (on thin clients, where possible). Complexity, power consumption, hardware costs and maintenance costs go way down. I can roll out twice the hardware for the same cost this way and there is very little maintenance needed afterwards. If current practices paint you into a corner, change what you are doing.

When a firm retains IT functionality either internally or from a provider, the most common error is that the firm believes itself an expert in IT including the portion(s) of the business that it will serve. The creation of the "geek," the "nerd," the "techie," and the information officer all point to a major misunderstanding of the relationship between IT and the rest of a firm. From Automobile Dealer to Zax Manager (Slate Roofing Company), the culture has rewarded the technical fire fighting technique in contrast with the discipline of an integrated business management process. A simple example of this is the manner in which an insurance firm will protect its actuarial formulae while letting sales folks have proprietary (to both customer and the business) on a laptop which may be stolen or compromised. IT does not need to improve its business acumen and understanding as it does need to stand up and be accountable for a portion of the business process now defaulting to management views of what IT is, could be, or ought to be.

It is nearly 2009 and it can't get much uglier.
I have had exactly three jobs and they were mostly part time, since my former company outsourced and sent our jobs to India...

It is NOT going to well in 2009 or 2010.
I think greed, inexperience and corruption are going to wreck what's left of our economy.