Strategies for managing in difficult environments-how cios manage it during economic decline: Surviving and thriving amid uncertainty

As the prosperity of the 1990s gave way to today’s economic slowdown, IT organizations had to decide how to support new application development while cutting costs. While reducing IT investments might cut costs, future growth hinges on continued IT investments. Interviews with twenty CIOs uncovered four approaches to managing IT during the current economic decline. The CIOs have either extended their IT lifecycle, bulletproofed their infrastructure, cleaned house, or maintained their legacy - or moved among these approaches. Three lessons for managing IT in future business cycles from this study are: (1) disciplined IT decision-making evens out IT ups and downs, (2) regular IT strategic reviews build business-aligned portfolios, and (3) balanced IT spending yields business agility.