IT is part of every business process, so the people who can use IT effectively should be, too. CIO's who think of themselves as savvy technologists skilled in aligning the work of the IT department with the goals of the parent corporation are in serious trouble and don't even know it.
They're smart, well trained, fully adapted to the last major wave of technology-fueled business innovation--and as anachronistic as a T. Rex expecting a giant meteor strike to bring great new opportunities for giant carnivorous saurians.
"Aligning IT with business--which has been a CIO's main goal since forever--that's gone," according to Chris Potts, director of Dominic Svs. Ltd., an IT strategy consultancy based in London. "IT is too integral to the practice--to the operation of the business--to be something separate that you align. You can't align IT decision-making and business decision-making; you have to treat them as an integrated decision-making process."
Source: Baseline, http://www.baselinemag.com