According to a recent UK survey, CIOs are still the red-headed step-children of the enterprise. Although almost 48% of respondents indicate that the CIO in their organization has a seat on the board (a number that seems almost positive, considering historical neglect), in 65% of cases, strategic plans are determined prior to any involvement by the IT department.

Those numbers seem suspect, as most survey numbers do, but they're what bloggers such as myself use as fodder for articles such as this, so I throw them in there mostly to get attention. It's actually hard to square the claim that almost half of CIOs sit on the board with the idea that two thirds of them don't participate in strategic planning... one or the other of those probably is just flat-out wrong but it's hard to say which. Both, perhaps. But the fact that IT is still under-utilized in the strategic planning process isn't something I would dispute... and there's no question in my mind that this has significant negative effects in business. I see too many grand visions passed off to the CIO for execution when the CIO could have dramatically improved on the vision at its inception with his or her greater knowledge of the possibilities, or limitations, of technology. The CIO then either resents being handed a flawed plan, or is put in the impossible position of having to execute an impossible one and has to absorb all the fall out for someone else's problems.

For all the talk, much of it on this very blog, about the diminishing role of the CIO in the future of the corporation, it's still important to ensure that someone at the head of the table who is developing strategy which requires information technology (or even which could benefit from information technology; and what strategy can't, these days?) be knowledgeable as to its capabilities and potential. Most CEOs still aren't there yet, and may not be for a generation or more. In the meantime, you'd better get the CIO a seat at the table and start listening, or pay the price against competitors who do.