Historically, the link between business executives and their company?s IT organization has been weak, obscure and difficult. Barriers to effective communication between business leaders and IT leaders included bad funding models, a poor understanding of each others needs, issues and timelines and a long history of failed initiatives - on both sides. Also, as IT importance grew exponentially, the business understanding of that importance did not always keep up.

Twenty-first century companies know that their IT systems are their life-blood, but getting to that understanding has been long in coming. With the rise of the Internet and the examples of Amazon, eBay and other IT miracles, the understanding of the effectiveness of value nets as well as of improved internal processes is pervasive. Executives now agree that they have to change or fail.

enough, though. Many companies still rely completely but implicitly on a patchwork of unmanageable decades-old systems whose builders and their knowledge - are long gone. The detritus of mergers and acquisitions, competing IT staffs, independent or "skunk-works" departmental IT organizations and widespread parochial thinking can not easily be overcome. But it has to be.