"Deciding on the quality of the solution was the area they had the greatest interest in -- with 36% believing that to be the business' job and another 39% viewing it as shared work between business and IT. Business responders also wanted to own or share in decisions about whether a solution should be firmwide or unit-specific, solution design, and prioritization of tech investments," the report reads.
Technology areas that business is satisfied with leaving to IT for 50 percent or more of the responsibility include security and privacy, project management, configuration of a new system and management of a system once it is in full production.
IT executives who have long worked to sit at the table with business leaders may be surprised to find what CEOs think of CIOs hasn't changed much in the past year, and Forrester analysts don't anticipate the current economic climate to improve the view of IT as disconnected from the technology it provides.
"The 2008 BT survey of business executives is a wake-up call for those IT leaders who thought that 2009 should be a continuation of 2008 behaviors with their business peers. Remember that the survey was conducted prior to the crises in the financial markets and subsequent slump of the economic indicators," Forrester wrote. "CIOs who conclude that this survey is not about them or their companies should think again. To not change some aspect of current behavior will surely result in losing ground somewhere in the firm."