CIOs and other executives face a brief, but extraordinarily unique period in which they can change the reach, roles and responsibilities of IT groups. Use Gartner's "Preparing to Return to Business Growth" checklists to create an agenda for initiatives, roles and responsibilities that can be examined, modified, developed or abandoned.

• In April 2009, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) projected that worldwide economic growth in 2010 will be 1.9%.
• In June 2009 the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) projected worldwide economic growth in 2010 will be 2.1%.
• In July 2009 the IMF revised upward its worldwide economic growth projections from its April rate of 1.9% to 2.5%.

• Audit all outward-looking-related activities conducted by each IT group. Recommend which activities should be maintained at current levels, altered, eliminated or adopted.
• Audit all inward-looking-related activities conducted by each IT group. Recommend which activities should be maintained at current levels, altered, eliminated or newly adopted.

In the second quarter of 2009, a number of highly respected economic research organizations predicted the overall world economy will grow modestly in 2010, exceeding the recessionary levels of 2009 (see Table 1). If these predictions are even somewhat accurate, it's reasonable to assume that individual economies could reach the bottom of their respective economic troughs and should anticipate a return to business growth. This means that, as client enterprises navigate the ongoing recession, clients must embrace the concept that now is the time to prepare for business growth.

Planning for the return of business growth before it actually arrives has precedents in other major undertakings and is no less worthy. For example, it was appropriate for CIOs and IT leaders to prepare for the IT challenges presented by Y2K before Y2K arrived. Business executives constantly prepare to comply with new regulations before new regulations go into effect. Organizations create contingency plans before disasters strike.

The changing economic climate requires similar preparation. Simply put, unless CIOs and executive leaders take proactive steps now to prepare for a return to economic and enterprise business growth, they will be incapable of leveraging and exploiting the benefits afforded by the return of a growing economy.

As the return to business growth approaches, CIOs have distinct decisions to make. Regardless of the choices they ultimately make during this preparation period, the choices will embrace two perspectives (see Figure 1):

1. Looking outward from the IT organization
2. Looking inward toward the IT organization

Within the current growth preparation period, IT organizations have an opportunity to change direction from past mission statements and decide if they should add mission statement tasks that involve directly engaging in enterprise business growth initiatives. Business growth initiatives that should be examined include, but are not confined to:

• Formulating and advancing enterprise strategies and goals
• Increasing enterprise revenue
• Improving enterprise profitability
• Increasing enterprise productivity
• Developing new enterprise capabilities
• Raising enterprise associate and customer confidence

Formulating and advancing enterprise strategies and goals — To more-meaningfully participate in this effort, IT leaders must specifically identify the new skills that IT practitioners must acquire to establish the credibility needed before earning a spot at the proverbial table.

Increasing enterprise revenue — Steps must be taken now to determine the issues that must be mastered by IT staff members if they are to become repeat contributors to the ongoing search for net new revenue opportunities from existing and/or not-yet-identified enterprise products and services.

Improving enterprise profitability — Research findings, case studies and analyses of new products and services must be constantly analyzed by IT practitioners, so they may acquire the skills needed to directly improve product, department or overall enterprise profitability.

Increasing enterprise productivity — Topic areas such as business process improvement and business intelligence will illuminate how investments in IT can actually yield improvements in worker, team and value network productivity that matter.

Developing new enterprise capabilities — Future examples of IT success will be measured by determining how many truly creative IT practitioners will be able to knock on the door of an enterprise executive and say, "I have an idea for the business."

Raising enterprise, associate and customer trust and confidence — Efforts to constantly improve confidence and trust from enterprise stakeholders will increasingly combine access to ever-improving enterprise transparency, and effective and timely messaging to those stakeholders. Choosing the best technology solutions that will enable both will be vital to attaining business growth.

Please note that, at no time, should IT practitioners become members of business growth efforts in which they will sit silently as noncontributors in the hope of capturing early warnings of new initiatives that may lie ahead.

Within the realm of looking inward toward an IT organization, we are essentially establishing a framework for changing the manner in which IT organizations conduct day-to-day activities that involve planning, designing, implementing and operating IT hardware, software and services-based business solutions. By taking advantage of the recession as a period to question the efficacy of all activities, procedures, responsibilities, structural styles, and so on, clients will realize if any changes are warranted. There will be no more perfect time to change than before the return to business growth.

Areas for our future examinations will include:

• Reorganize IT?
• Change procurement processes?
• Contract negotiating?
• Asset management processes?
• Agency authority, signing authority?
• Project rationalization process?
• Change budgeting for new projects?
• Change budgeting for existing IT?
• Reskilling or upskilling the workforce?

Reorganize IT? Despite the explosive number of changes that have occurred in IT solutions over the past five decades, IT user organizational structures have remained relatively static during that same period. A dispassionate analysis of currently employed as well as new IT organizational structures will best prepare IT groups to address future demands.

Change procurement processes? A fresh review of common procurement department methodologies must be periodically undertaken to determine whether current practices are keeping pace with changing information technologies, marketplaces and market forces. Is the end of issuing competitive bids near?

Contract negotiating? Clients must determine the degree to which their IT and procurement practitioners should pursue more-formal legal and business training to improve their ability to favorably negotiate multimillion-dollar IT hardware, software and services contracts. After all, the vendors are more formally trained.

Asset management processes? It is time to conclude whether organizations should continue placing the enterprise's IT hardware, software and services capital and/or operating expenses in the CIO's budget or begin placing those expenses in a "personless" cost center.

Agency authority, signing authority? Should vendors be placed on legal notice that client organizations will not be responsible for payment of any IT hardware, software and services should such orders be placed by individuals not appearing on a user's authorized "agency authority" and "signing authority" lists?

Project rationalization process? Despite the presence of a myriad of review committees, governance boards and other mechanisms geared toward identifying IT project priorities, why are so many "questionable" projects ready to receive funding and IT support? Should completed projects undergo scrutiny to determine whether ROI promises were met?

Change budgeting for new projects? Is it time to use zero-based budgeting and other techniques to enable clients to be leading technology and financial stewards of their enterprises?

Change budgeting for existing IT? How will organizations confront and surmount enterprise cultural inertia that permits unnecessary IT expenses to accumulate year after year without being challenged.

Reskilling or upskilling the workforce? With cloud computing, Web 2.0, social networking and other relatively new paradigms continuing to evolve, the tasks involved in preparing a workforce to maximize the business value of these and other solutions will be imperative.

Throughout our examination of the above described (and many other) issues that clients should weigh and decide upon before business growth returns, we will endeavor to assume the perspectives of inquiring CEOs, CFOs, COOs and other senior-level executives as well as boards directors.