The FutureM Conference is this week, and like most marketers I’m looking forward to the balance of great topics, healthy debate and socializing with my colleagues. A week ago, I caught one of the many articles around a FutureM scheduled discussion, this CIO.com piece featuring Larry Weber and Kathleen Schaub of IDC.
It’s an article I’ve read 100 times in the last six months, covering the supposed changing role of the CIO and how the CMO will impact technology decisions and therefore will work with the CIO’s office, which had me asking the same question, “will the CIO still have a job?”
I love a good trend, but rely mostly on facts. The latest IDC figures show that about two thirds of technology spending for marketing is already being paid for out of marketing rather than IT budgets, and the amount being spent each year is growing strongly. Good.
This doesn’t mean, however that the CIO is at risk. Sure, it might take some budget shifts here and there, but that is to be expected as increasingly IT technology is reducing spend, decreasing licensing costs, requiring less infrastructure and storage…and the list goes on.