IT manager 'an endangered species'

IT managers will soon no longer have overall control of a company's IT strategy and systems, according to analyst Gartner's programme director Charles Chang.

Instead, a chief technology officer will take on many of the management tasks traditionally assumed by IT managers, ensuring technology is provided reliably and at a reasonable cost.

Meanwhile, a chief information officer will concentrate on using IT to boost and change the business. Only a business unit IT manager - or one at a small company - will continue to run everything, said Chang.

Gartner vice president Peter Sondergaard, speaking at the analyst's symposium in Cannes, had plenty of advice for IT managers facing this transition. "IT professionals have to be able to articulate how investments in IT can affect revenues," he said. "Most IT professionals don't view IT from that perspective."

The ideal IT manager must combine the best of the old economy with the flexibility of the new, Sondergaard added.

The IT manager of the past was "an operations manager - good when alerting line managers to IT opportunities" but the IT manager of the future will have to be "a business visionary and technical opportunist", he said.

When it comes to staffing issues, IT managers will have to become excellent people managers. "You have to integrate people with grey hair and people with green hair and pins in their tongues," Sondergaard said.

Those firms that implement proper career planning will be twice as good at retaining staff as those that do not - an important factor, because Gartner predicts that three out of 10 IT vacancies will remain unfilled.

Sondergaard advises IT managers to concentrate on hiring integrators, because they will become at least as important as application developers. "You should start building that skill set now, because it will be part of your competitive advantage," he advised.