Business needs come first say Silicon.com delegates

Silicon.com's IT on Board event in London yesterday provoked a fiery debate on whether or not organisations needed an IT leader at board level.

IPC's IT director, Rene Carayol, insisted every company needed an IT director, but fellow speaker Professor Chris Edwards of the Cranfield School of Management stressed that different companies had different needs.

Edwards said: "Your business should begin to understand how they use information, to work out whether or not they need an IT director."

Members of the 100-strong audience contributed to the debate. "I think you need a champion on the board who can breach the gap between the technical and business requirements," said Alastair Peebles, European IS manager, Altera.

It emerged that the route to IT director was changing, as many employers recruited people with non-technical skills and the market changed. One attendee, Simon Howson-Green, who develops content for digital TV, said: "As BSkyB becomes a retailer and Tesco becomes a publisher, I think the IT director should have experience with content."

"You need a combination of technical and non-technical backgrounds, but we haven't found these people yet," said Cranfield's Edwards.

Carayol, who calls himself a non-technical IT director, added: "I don't know what's going to happen next year [in IT], but I know people who can tell me and I know how to adapt."

Delegates stressed the need for a more positive image of IT. David Taylor, president of Certus, an association which aims to raise the profile of corporate IT, said: "The mass media only covers IT failures, like London Ambulance and the London Stock Exchange's Taurus system. When IT is successful, like with First Direct, they call it a business success. We need to change the image of IT forever in this country - so go out there and make a difference!"