1. How does the job of the CIO change with the assumption of customer responsibilities? Do you agree with this new development? Why or why not?
2. Why would there be internal resistance to CIOs becoming more externally customer-focused than they were before? Does this present a threat to executives in other areas of a company?
3. How do companies benefit from having their CIO meet customers and generally become more involved with product development? What can companies do now that was not possible before? Provide a few examples.

C IOs thought they knew what business-IT alignment was. But fighting the dark forces of recession has really taught the lesson—to some of them, anyway.