Get ready for a tough New Year

CIOs must get ready for 2008. The seas are shifting, and what was hot in 2007 might be cooling off in 2008. There are plenty of challenges ahead for the New Year, starting with the demand to integrate IT into every business decision and do it with speed, not taking the time to ponder action versus inaction. "Businesses are calling for more flexible responses, and an IT infrastructure that will allow IT to respond more quickly to changing business requirements and needs," said Andrew Bartels, a research analyst at Forrester Research in Cambridge, Mass. "Businesses need to be able to be more nimble and react more quickly, and CIOs will be looking for technologies that allow IT to do that."

It is a challenging time amid predictions that the IT market may be cooling, and CIOs, as well as other IT executives, will be asked to do more with less money. But stay alert. There are plenty of tools to help you out, and lots of ways to bring home the bacon using your savvy and IT smarts. Bartels says that CIOs must pay attention to the foundation technologies that bring adaptability to their company and lead the way for the next generation of technology. Some new processes--like service oriented architecture--are already in place to help CIOs get keep up-to-speed.

"People don't even talk SOA anymore because they're doing it," said Kavin Moody, executive director of the Center for Information Management Studies at Babson College in Wellesley, Mass. Remember that collaborative technologies save money, too. And keep in mind that there is no reason to keep a legacy system running parallel to a new technology unless you absolutely have to. There's an old saying that fits right into this. A penny saved is a penny earned. Or more to the point, technology reevaluated and revalued can help you maintain a bottom line in the black. Happy New Year. -Judi

FierceCIO will not be publishing next week, in observance of the holidays. We'll return on Thursday, January 3rd. Happy Holidays!