Leader: The business has gone too far

We knew cost cutting was rife in IT departments - but who could predict it would become so extreme?

Bringing in 'interim IT directors' - specialised contractors with knowledge of a business' current IT projects - has become an accepted practice.

This saves the business money on a full salary and benefits, and also comes cheaper than management consultancies.

But despite the respectable wage paid to interim IT directors, this is bad news for IT professionals. How much respect can they command and how much power can they wield when they're always 'the new guy' - or even worse 'the temp'?

It's bad for the business too. Surely an IT director brings more to a company as a permanent employee than as a temp - such as experience with the corporate culture and industry, and better relationships with the other workers, all of which make him or her more effective at the job.

The 'temp CIO' smacks of an idea from a board without proper representation from IT - from people whose only concern is the bottom line, who have no concept of the value quality IT leaders bring to a company.

New research shows this is both true and false. IT is better represented on the board than five years ago. But just who are those people? They're not from technical backgrounds but from other parts of the business.

This, despite the fact those businesses with 'pure' IT directors have a faster pace of change than those with directors responsible for IT and other areas, according to the same research.

Both bits of evidence support the ongoing trends of cost-cutting and the fact IT professionals must develop business skills to move up the corporate ladder. What's new is how far these inclinations have gone. Too far, we say - so far as to be of detriment to the enterprise.