Leader: 2006 is a year for CIOs to be bold

The first five years of this century have been difficult for CIOs and IT directors, faced with a tough economic environment and the legacy of boardrooms still distrustful of technology following the empty promises of Y2K and the dot-com boom.

The loss of faith in the strategic value of IT in many organisations has led to the role of IT chief becoming one of cutting costs and managing an outsourcing contract.

This hasn't been entirely bad, however, and it has forced the IT profession to take a long hard look at itself and how it relates to the rest of the business. This means we now have some CIOs capable of genuinely engaging with other boardroom executives in deciding the strategic vision of the organisation.

This puts the CIO and IT director in a position of some strength going into 2006 as we embark on what many analysts are highlighting as another era of disruptive technological change that is likely to have a major impact on the way organisations do business in the future.

In its 2006 resolutions, analyst Gartner says CIOs should get rid of their costly and complex legacy systems once and for all and prepare the business for the "second internet".

That needs bold leadership skills from CIOs with the vision to see now the impact these technological advances will have in two years' time and the credibility to be able to convince their boardroom to back them on it.

silicon.com will also be publishing the results of our own exclusive CIO research in the run-up to Christmas and the early signs are that things such as service-oriented architecture and web services are starting to make an impact on businesses.

That doesn't mean abandoning all the sensible lessons learnt over the past few years and, of course, there should be sound business justification for any new gambles but at least there is the return of an environment that encourages CIOs to be bold.

Look out for silicon.com's 2006 CIO Agenda in the next few weeks and for the results of last year's survey click here.