The term CIO (chief information officer) has always struck me as having been invented by the IT industry to give its subject some board credibility (Ask the experts, www.computing.co.uk/2199146).

But the fact remains that the performance by IT – especially project delivery – remains woeful. I am old enough to remember when chief information officers started talking about delivering competitive advantage. Well, of the few examples I have ever seen, not one was delivered and driven by a CIO.

Most CIOs do not have a good grasp of business imperatives, remaining very much technologists first and politicians second. Yet they all seem to trot out the old cliché, and it has been around for more than 20 years now – “align business and technology” – but so very few do it successfully.

It appears to me that Boots is one of the first companies to realise the CIO’s lack of value. The people who matter to an organisation are those who can bring about change; technologists are increasingly two-a-penny. CIOs might hate to admit it, but few organisations would really miss them if they faded into oblivion.

Bring on the next organisations that see CIOs for what they are really worth.

Robert Stevens