The New IT: How Technology Leaders are Enabling Business Strategy in the Digital Age

1

What’s Wrong with IT?

                  Sometimes I get discouraged

                  Sometimes I feel so down

                  Sometimes I get so worried

                  But I don’t know what about.

             —Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, “Century City” (1979)

It’s a frigid wintry morning in Boston, and I hydroplane my way across the hotel parking lot, cursing myself for wearing four-inch heels as I grope inside my backpack for my rental car keys. Despite the ordeal, I’m finding this an apt metaphor for the client I’m about to go visit, a CIO looking to navigate the slippery political terrain of his company, a multinational financial ...