• silicon.com
• Management
• CIO Insights

By Jon Bernstein, 23 December 1999 12:00

COMMENT 1999 will be remembered as the year information technology went mainstream. It was the year dot-com anything and e-everything became the motif for UK and European businesses. It was the year governments around the world attempted to put in some meaningful legislation that would underpin the ongoing ecommerce revolution (to which most Net entrepreneurs said - 'Just let us get on with it'). And of course, it was the year we had a 365 day build-up to an imminent disaster all of our own making. For the first time taxi drivers on discovering you work in 'the industry' refrained from asking you to 'spec up' a PC for their nephew. Instead they sought assurances that their fridge/freezer would be 'millennium compliant' come the big night. The bad news and the good news combined to raise the profile of information technologists to unprecedented levels. So is all this attention a positive force for the men and women who earn their living in the IT department? The answer, as always, is yes and no. As IT goes mainstream, so the mainstream - the MD, the CEO, the marketing director - wants a bigger piece of the action. As bought in services rather than technology built in-house becomes the order of the day, so the rationale for a large IT department becomes questionable. We've seen IT directors promoted to the board (Lloyds TSB) but we've also seen the birth of the ecommerce director (Great Universal Stores). Few companies are going to have both and it remains far from certain that the ecommerce director will be plucked from the IT department. The department is under threat but from the threat comes opportunities for the individuals ready for the challenge. In the final Behind the Headlines of the year (http://www.silicon.com/a34733 ), two former senior IT professionals heralded the demise of the IT department and the IT director in their current form. Having successfully traversed a career within that department, why do they seem so intent on blowing up the path behind them? According to Richard Sykes, former CIO at ICI: "We're entering a period in which IT is becoming a broader management competency and the real value in a company comes through your marketing director, your sales director and your CEO all being sufficiently literate of the capabilities of IT." David Taylor, once of Cornhill Insurance, added: "The reality is for the people with the right skills - which may be a minority of currently labelled IT directors - the future is very bright for them and their organisations. But there will be some casualties; there will be some retirements. I think there will be some people moving into more of a technology role, but I look on this situation as one to celebrate. The next two years are going to be fantastic for the people prepared to find the opportunities and take advantage of them." The threats are obvious, the opportunities great. Until next century, from all the Silicon.com team, have a great holiday and a bug-free New Year.