A lot of BI tools are coming out, but there is a shortage of talent in using them, Abramovitch pointed out. "This role would typically combine business acumen with technical skills ... This person doesn't just have to have the acumen with the tools to extract data from the databases. They also have to analyze it," he said.

The emergence of SaaS is also increasing the need for Internet business skills, Abramovitch pointed out. "A lot of IT folks do have the tools and the technical skills to potentially develop those programs or that software, but not a lot of them have the business acumen to potentially know how that fits in with the overall goal of the organization and how that will drive the bottom line," he said.

IT managers are often criticized for not having enough business knowledge, said Jennifer Perrier-Knox, senior research analyst at Info-Tech Research Group Inc. "In terms of in-demand skills amongst IT professionals, business knowledge is a big one," she said.

Info-Tech is seeing active hiring in areas that require more business understanding. "Even in the economy, the way it is where people are being laid off, those with a business understanding of skills are the ones that are going to be kept," she said.

The alignment between business and technology hasn't been strong, Perrier-Knox pointed out. "What often happens is business wants one thing and then IT tries to deliver on it without understanding what the business really needs and wants and how it operates, so often there is a disconnect that happens," she explained.