A bigger issue is shaping demand at more of an aggregate level. I’m speaking to two groups of CIOs over the next month on “Managing Business Demand In A Time Of Tight Budgets”. The concern for them is everyone has been asked to trim their spending plans – but demand for IT resources doesn’t necessarily go away just because the budget’s smaller – projects and services. While they have a reason to say no to project requests, or to trim service levels, they are hurting the perception of IT as attuned and responsive to business priorities. We have survey data – less than a week old – that has CIOs putting “Improving the transparency of IT costs, capacity and business demand” as the fastest rising priority (compared to 2007). CIOs are concerned and have reason to be – they don’t have a lock on their firm’s IT solutions, given the alternatives available to business areas from SaaS vendors and service providers. When the upturn comes, they want their organizations viewed as valued partners, not as ‘one supplier among many’.

I’d love a discussion of “what does IT transparency mean to business execs?, and how should CIOs address this transparency?”