But doing this is not straightforward. As Wang explains, business wants simple, sexy apps that are scalable. The CIO, on the other hand, wants an environment that is safe, secure and responsible. They have to play the responsible individual, he says. "If business wins, what happens to IT? You are stuck with the bill. What if IT wins? You don't have a business."

He predicts that in the next two years, "Business will buy everything they can because they think they can." The CIO has to play "catch up just enough" and to figure out how to standardise, otherwise the business is going to fail.

"You need to help them think through the integration framework that is required. You have to help think of the data security and the data models that you have to put in place, the process models that are there and if you can help people get there, then at least they can move forward but not move so far apart from where you are."

Dealing with disruption

Wang underscores the importance of getting this balance of business skills and tech savvy as enterprises face massive and unprecedented levels of change. For instance, if a CIO had a five-year IT plan in 2008, it would have missed Facebook, the cloud, mobility and will be sitting with "really ugly architecture".