Leader: Analyst predictions have their use

Pick a number, double it, add a hundred and multiply it by a million. Sometimes that's how it feels the industry analysts come up with the worth of some segment of the IT market in five or ten years time.

That's not to suggest it's actually how they calculate their predictions but it is often hard to understand what the vast billion-dollar figures for sometime in the future mean for those working in the IT industry today. And will anybody check in 2015 to see if the estimates were correct? Will anybody even care?

Too often information that could be useful is distorted in large analyst reports that represent a global view that means little to many businesses.

The point of all this is not to disparage the efforts of the analyst community but to highlight that for time-poor senior executives there is a knack to getting the most out of the advice and predictions.

The results of silicon.com's CIO Jury today showed that IT chiefs use analyst insight and predictions as a valued tool in their strategic armoury.

But it comes with caveats. CIOs said the key to using analysts is to ask the right questions - and that means being specific about your requirements, otherwise you will get a vague answer that is probably not relevant to your business.

Independence from more vendor-biased consultancies is also valuable for many IT executives.

Ultimately, however, you should still be wary with Paul Coby, CIO at British Airways, warning of "motherhoods masquerading as insights".

"You must retain your capability to make up your own mind and form your own strategy," he said.

Good advice.