IT managers are coming under increasing pressure to deliver more for less, while at the same time continue to be sidelined from business strategy. That’s the main finding of new research by independent networking forum CIO Connect.

In a survey of 66 senior IT professionals, 80 per cent of respondents said the biggest impact on IT departments in the coming few months would be increased demands to deliver value to the business, while 71 per cent predicted executive demands for cost containment would increase during the same period. Some 73 per cent of respondents said that in order to deliver more value from existing infrastructure they would increase their focus on business processes.

Judging by the results, IT departments continue to have a relatively small influence on wider business strategy, with just 40 per cent of respondents reporting that their chief information officer (CIO) had a place at the boardroom table. Only 20 per cent of IT managers believed IT was regarded as a strategic contributor to the business.

However, the findings also suggest that IT’s isolation may be self-inflicted. Some 47 per cent of respondents said their principal role was application development while just 13 per cent saw themselves as being business change agents.

Most respondents said their greatest strengths were in technology infrastructure and their biggest weaknesses in process design and management.

Speaking at a recent Forrester event, British Airways chief information officer Paul Coby argued that for IT to be more appreciated by the board, it needed to work with business metrics and understand business requirements. “The main thing businesses want is faster IT with a can-do attitude,” he said. “Think how you come across to the CEO and the leadership team.”