By Peter Krass

Suddenly, it seems, the drive for innovation is everywhere. BNP Paribas, one of the largest banks anywhere, recently announced a competition seeking the top innovations from its 140,000 employees worldwide. Two consultants, the co-heads of Boston Consulting's innovation practice, have recently published a book called Payback: Reaping the Rewards of Innovation. And a recent CEO-CIO symposium, Fusion 2007, was devoted entirely to the subject of IT innovation.

Why innovation, and why now? In a word, growth. The great IT slowdown of 2001 through 2004, when organizations and theirCIOs focused primarily on cutting costs and increasing efficiency, is over. While cost-containment remains important to CIOs, increasingly, their organizations seek growth.

That's because, after several years of reducing costs and boosting efficiencies, many organizations are as lean and mean as possible. But now global competition has intensified. And with it, so has the desire on the part of CEOs and other business leaders for corporate growth.

Smart CIOs see this change as a new opportunity to become transformational and growth leaders. They know that IT innovation, done right, can help drive business growth. And that, in a nutshell, is the message behind this second issue of Smart Enterprise.

To help CIOs seize this exciting new opportunity, Smart Enterprise has dedicated some of our top writers to exploring the vital issue of IT innovation. Take this issue's lead feature, "Innovating forGrowth," which explores growth-promoting IT innovations at Fidelity, New York City's Department of Health, Fujitsu and other organizations. Or the Best Practices article, "The SOA Constrictor," which highlights a vital point: While the benefits of service-oriented architectures can be impressive, CIOs must fully prepare for this new approach—or risk getting squeezed. And consider this issue's Case Study, which shows how Aflac CIO Gerald Shields has delivered more than $21 million in IT-driven efficiency improvements to the business.

Smart Enterprise, the result of a unique alliance between CMP Technology and CA, remains dedicated to helping CIOs and other business-technology executives become transformational leaders of their organizations. To do so, we have once again assembled some of the IT industry's top journalists, analysts and executives to provide you, our CIO readers, with innovative reporting, insights and perspectives. Taken together, this issue of Smart Enterprise aims to be your guide to the new and burgeoning age of IT innovation. Welcome aboard the innovation express.

Peter Krass
Editor in Chief
editor@smartenterprisemag.com