Why It's Important to Know What's Troubling CIOs

Being a CIO is tougher than ever. A global survey of 200 CIOs conducted by market research firm Vanson Bourne on behalf of network provider Brocade finds that besides worrying about their own job security, CIOs don't exercise as much control over the IT environment as they once did. For example, 83 percent of those polled conceded that procurement of cloud computing services without the direct involvement of internal IT is likely to increase. For solution providers across the channel, that trend represents a double-edged sword. On one hand, it generally means there is more money allocated for IT solutions outside the control of the internal IT department. However, it also means that the internal IT organization most views those services as an incursion of its domain, which means they would probably prefer to replace them as soon as they can. Of course, the better part of valor is to include the CIO in IT decisions as much as possible. While that may take extra time to accomplish, the amount of friction that can be reduced between solution providers and internal IT organizations can be priceless.