That was the message in Chicago from CIOs, who emphasized the need to make technology subservient to the business process, not the other way around. And that includes making sure that the IT department contributes to the corporate bottom line.

"We [in IT] think every year of revenue enhancement and cost savings opportunities," said panelist Joshua Jewett, CIO at Family Dollar, a Matthews, N.C.-based retail chain. His department has a key role in those efforts and collaborates its work with other parts of the company rather than passively awaiting instruction.

"There is a danger for a CIO to be seen as being too much associated with just technology," Jewett said. "Technology rarely delivers a return on investment [ROI] on its own. The ROI is about fundamentally changing the way the business does business. Technology facilitates a business vision. It doesn't provide that vision and doesn't make it happen."

Jewett partners closely with the operational parts of Family Dollar to formulate a business vision, efforts that include the creation of cross-functional teams involving both IT and business staff. Every major IT project requires a dedicated business sponsor to oversee it and drive the return from it. Business departments themselves often collaborate with IT staffers to formulate multi-year technology roadmaps that ensure alignment with IT -- and make sure a given business unit has the resources it needs. As part of these processes, Jewett often has to help filter out bad proposals and back viable ones.

"There isn't a shortage of good ideas," he said. "Sometimes ideas come to you from other business units, and they are not well thought-out or not well understood. Another art of being CIO is being able to communicate this without being seen as raining on their parade."