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Many companies have identified this disconnect. Following the IT-at-any-cost gluttony of the late 1990s, companies recommitted themselves to setting clear objectives and measuring returns for their technology investments. But most got so caught up in the process of technology ROI that they lost sight of the goal: creating business value. Technology vendors and consultants didn't help matters with their ROI calculators and buttoned-down methodologies. In many cases, oversimplification and even deception replaced inattention to detail when it came to prioritizing an organization's technology spending.

All of which gets us to 2003 and the theme of this issue's cover package: What can IT professionals do to finally align tech spending with business objectives? Certainly, you must understand what makes an IT project a business necessity (hint: it should cut costs and boost revenue), and it helps to shed the geek image. But it's less important that you master the lexicon of ROI and more important that you regularly talk with sales, marketing, human resources, manufacturing, customer service and other internal business partners--and then, arm in arm with those partners, engage the financial people who will scrutinize your budget requests.

All About Credibility

You can have the sharpest financial intellect in your department, but if the suite dwellers don't take you seriously because you toss jargon around like a freshman accounting major--or, worse, they don't trust you because you play fast with the numbers--that's the end of your credibility and, by extension, the credibility of your peers. Without credibility, you're nothing. And, in the end, you'll be getting in the way of your company's ability to leverage technology to boost its bottom line.

Sometimes it's OK to rely on qualitative arguments for IT spending, especially when your internal business partners are backing you up. But you must measure the financial impact of that technology after it's deployed. Just because the returns are murky at the start of a project doesn't let you and your partners off the hook permanently.

Of course, your company's receptiveness to IT proposals depends on other variables besides your business savvy, such as the rate at which the company is growing, the technical vision of its management, even the industry it's in. A Chapter 11-saddled steel manufacturer, for instance, is likely to hold its IT organization's feet closer to the financial fire than a hyper-growth bio-technology company would. Your job is to maximize IT's potential at your company given those other variables. As former Chrysler Chairman Lee Iacocca used to say, "Lead, follow or get out of the way."

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