CIO Goals Shift Toward Profits, Away From Cost-Savings

According to this month's CIOInsight study on alignment, 80 percent of for-profit companies say increasing revenues rather than reducing costs is their primary strategy for improving earnings. That means the never-ending task of aligning IT with the business is now focused on launching new products, improving speed and service, and supporting mergers and acquisitions.
The survey of more than 1,000 business and IT executives has good news for CIOs: Business executives understand just as well as IT executives do that alignment is critically important for growth. It also turns out that the same practices that help with alignment, such as collaboration between IT and business and a flexible IT infrastructure, really do help companies grow.