CIOs face a tough new year

Booz & Co., a leading management consulting company, is predicting that CIOs will be less powerful as the economic climate gets tougher for their companies. In order to retain their leadership positions, Booz & Co. recommends that CIOs find ways to cut costs and continue providing a strategic boost to business during the recession.

"The relative authority of a CIO on the leadership team is probably once again going down," says Barry Jaruzelski, a partner in Booz & Co.'s high-tech practice. "It's a bit of a shift of the pendulum to IT being a necessary evil...The CFO and the controller are kings."

Jaruzelski said there will be "more pressure'' on CIOs to get work done faster and at a lower cost. He also predicted that IT infrastructure will not be cut back as much as classic capital equipment, such as factory machinery.

Here are a few of his suggestions to deal with today's harsh reality:

Skip incremental improvements that aren't that impressive.
Spend frugally and stick to your budget.
Upgrades should be tied not just to IT savings, but to savings across business operations.

The bad news is that Booz & Co. is predicting a very difficult budgetary year. The good news is that it won't be as bad as it was in 2001, the company says.

For more on adjusting to the economic conditions:
- Check out this NetworkWorld article [1]