CIO: Time to hibernate?

Whilst out running recently, in an attempt to divert my mind from the discomfort that is part and parcel of interval training, I attempted to draw parallels with the environment I was running in and the one I spend my business life in.

Looking at the trees, I noticed that many of them were losing their leaves. But some were not.This by the way is quite an observation when the oxygen needed to keep the brain functioning drops into the red.

What if the trunk and branches represented the the business and the leaves were the IT function? Stick with this please.

So some businesses, when the environment gets challenging, choose not to feed the IT function. They are quite happy to let it struggle and eventually shrivel up and die. Such organisations have battened down the hatches with a view to going into hibernation until the market picks up again. And if that means the death of their IT function then so be it.

But what if this is the 'new normal'? I would recommend that CIOs and their staff migrate to organisations that are not so seasonal. Whilst today's industry leaders hibernate, tomorrow's industry leaders are busy growing.