Some year end thoughts

For the past few weeks I have been having this discussion with several CIO's 
and managers about the state of IT from the perspective of the corporate 
world and thought I would throw it out here and see what everyone else 
thought.

For those of you who do not know me very well, I have been in the IT sector 
for close to 26 years, some previous system36 time, some AS/400 time but 
predominently most of it was spent utilizing Unix in the transporation 
industry.  My thoughts obviously will be somewhat colored by that industry 
and its typical business model and rules.

I have noticed over the past 10 or so years that IT from a strategic 
standpoint has been more or less relegated to a second tier position, 
meaning that at most companies it is not considered a strategic part of the 
business model and seldom reports directly to the President / CEO.

What I have been seeing as of late is a direct correlation between 
costs/expenses and IT, and that is partially responsible for a lot of 
companies restructuring their IT reports under the CFO (Chief Financial 
Officer).

I have always had a problem with this lining up of the stars per se, from 
one perspective it removes IT from the strategic table and lowers the 
perception of its deliverables.  

Thoughts? Comments?  I would be genuinely interested in knowing what a lot 
of you think...

Douglas

If you bought it, it was hauled by a truck - somewhere, sometime.