CIO Insight has published their list of predictions of the 30 top IT trends for 2007. There’s no explanation, justification, or discussion of their list — so I don’t know what kind of thinking, analysis, surveys, or other mumbo-jumbo formed the basis for their predictions. Indeed, I’m not even sure what some of them — like #2 on the list, “IT works on closing the sale” — really mean…

Oh … whoops: that’s because I didn’t click on the URL hyperlinks that have been created for each major category of predictions, i.e., “Strategy,” “Management,” and so forth. And it turns out that there’s a separate page for each of the 30 prediction items, each of which is supported with results from several survey questions. So, “IT works on closing the sale” is further explained by some text that says,

“Companies seek to expand by luring new customers and exploiting niche markets. Optimism reigns: Four out of five companies are pursuing a growth strategy rather than a cost-reduction strategy, and companies are focusing on acquiring new customers. Exploiting niche markets made profitable b y the Internet is one way they will do it. Of course, if the economy slides into a recession, all bets are off. Until then, CIOs will be focused on helping their companies sell, and getting more mileage out of their investments in sales and marketing strategies.”

Hmmm … okay, well, I’m not sure I completely agree with this, but at least there’s a plausible basis for the predictions and conclusions. Among the catchy statistics on the detailed page about “IT Works on Closing the Sale” are these: “customer acquisition is the top goal of 52% of companies focused on growth, but just 18% of those focused on cutting costs,” and “30% of IT budgets goes to supporting customer-focused business activities.”

In any case, here’s the complete list; I recommend that you click on my link at the beginning of this posting, and take a look at the entire set of predictions and supporting details:

Strategy
1. Process improvement will be job No. 1
2. IT works on closing the sale
3. Companies make their Web sites more engaging
4. Customer service gets a tune-up
5. Companies put their mounds of data to work
6. Information governance gains momentum
7. CIOs strive to be strategic

Management
8. The division between IT and business will diminish
9. CIO compensation keeps climbing
10. IT organizations will keep growing
11. CIOs struggle to find business-savvy technologists
12. Outsourcing changes IT management
13. Outsourcing growth slows
14. Offshoring shifts from India
15. Companies invest in IT leadership
16. Demonstrating ROI will remain a struggle

Security and Risk
17. No abatement of IT security threats
18. Security concerns turn users away from Windows
19. Security morphs into risk management
20. Compliance achieves what government intended
21. Compliance spurs financial process improvement

Technology
22. The move to a new architecture marches on
23. Enterprise applications start losing their luster
24. Data quality demands attention
25. IT reluctantly embraces Web 2.0
26. IT innovation loses traction
27. Business process management services and software will frustrate users
28. For business intelligence, the best is yet to come
29. IT organizations start going green
30. Dissatisfaction with vendors is on the rise
I was both surprised and a little cynical about the very first item on the list: “Process improvement will be job No. 1.” Haven’t we been trying to do that for the past 20 years or more? Are we really still in a situation where “most IT executives say improving business processes is their top priority, and CIOs consider it their most important responsibility”? And after pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into hardware and software investments over the past couple of decades, do we really believe CIO Insight’s pronouncement that “executives see many opportunities for automating processes, so expect more projects to be launched in the near term”?

It was also a bit discouraging to see prediction #25 (I’m assuming these are ranked in decreasing order of importance, significance, or likelihood of actually happening), namely that “IT Reluctantly Embraces Web 2.0″. But CIO Insight’s summary made sense:

“Web 2.0 technologies, such as social networks, blogs and wikis, are all the rage. Despite security concerns, it’s going to be hard for IT executives to shoo employees away from these grassroots technologies for communicating and sharing information. In time, CIOs will grasp how futile it is to try to stop the spread of these popular personal technologies, and will instead encourage their use, while slipping in guidelines (such as approved tools) and security procedures for users to follow. But we’re not quite there yet.”

According to the magazine’s poll results, only 35% of early adopters and mainstream adopters agreed with the statement, “My company encourages the average employee to experiment with free or inexpensive Web-based applications (e.g., Google toolbar, deli.co.us, etc.).” On the other hand, “60% say team collaboration tools are one of the emerging technologies most likely to provide business value.”

I’m not sure how good CIO Insight’s crystal ball is, but it sure does look like there will be a lot of IT work to do in 2007 …