"Understandably, companies focused on driving new revenue tend to be more effective than their peers at using IT to create new products and to find new customers," the report says. "They also outperform when it comes to improving the reliability of IT infrastructure and aligning IT with the rest of the business. Far more surprising is that respondents from these revenue-focused companies have a more positive view of their organization's ability to reduce costs than those respondents who primarily prioritize cost-cutting."

For example, Steve Stone, former CIO of Lowes, notes that a CIO can take the technology challenges faced by big box retailers like Lowes and turn them into opportunity. When he took the reins as CIO in 2002, the prevailing strategy was to establish an infrastructure in each store that would allow it to be up and running no matter what, even if communications were cut. But that strategy created some serious challenges, especially the considerable replacement costs of redundant infrastructure at each location. Stone was able to consolidate on a central data center while also making the data available to the business on a more timely basis. That, in turn, allowed the business to begin crunching that data to offer new services, like optimizing the supply chain to reduce delivery costs while getting products to customers faster.

"For the brick and mortar retailers now, you really need to leverage the wide area network and lean out the technology in the store to the point you don't need to replace it all so frequently," he says.