After the difficult economic conditions in 2009, the outlook for IT is looking brighter for 2010. During 2009 the focus of many organisations was cutting costs. Centralisation, standardisation, integration, off shoring, outsourcing and prioritisation were all high on the agenda for many CIOs. Last year many organisations began to recognise the importance of having the right leadership in place for their IT function, resulting in an increase in demand for
Interim CIOs and IT Directors as organisations reassess their strategy for IT and adapt to new delivery models in response to market conditions. This may continue into 2010 as more organisations recognise the need to change. Those IT departments that are closely aligned to the business and demonstrate true value will thrive and could help to drive business change, rather than simply being seen as a cost.
Organisations will continue to look at the effectiveness of their project management capability and their ability to prioritise projects to achieve better results. What else will 2010 bring? Will cloud computing and software/infrastructure as a service continue to dominate and if so how will that influence the future of IT departments? How will organisations continue to tackle the challenge of Information Management?
I am sure it will continue to be another challenging year however in the
IT interim market but there has been a definite increase in activity and there are encouraging signs of an upturn – indicators that, as predicted by Gartner, we will see a return to revenue growth for IT in 2010.