By Peter Krass

Today’s economy presents CIOs with new pressures — and new opportunities. Opportunity? In this economy? Yes. But don’t get me wrong. We at Smart Enterprise fully appreciate the pressures CIOs now feel. Pressure to control costs and budgets. Pressure to speed the return on IT investments. Pressure, perhaps, to reduce staff, valuable and well-trained though they may be. But behind these pressures, CIOs can find new opportunities. Opportunities to increase market share, strengthen sales, control costs and improve productivity now, when it really counts.

This issue’s cover story, “OpportunITy to Make a Difference,” explores the myriad ways CIOs can lead in today’s economy. The article, by contributing editor Larry Lange, shows how real-world CIOs are finding new ways to help achieve their organizations’ top goals. With this issue, Smart Enterprise is also seizing opportunity, in our case, the opportunity to enhance the magazine in ways that serve the evolving needs of our readers. More specifically, we have created several new and exciting editorial sections:

World Watch is our new look at important IT and business developments around the world, reflecting Smart Enterprise’s increasingly global readership. This first World Watch profiles “green” computing in Germany, examines innovation initiatives in Australia, and reports on CIOs in the U.K.

CIO Roundtable brings unedited insights direct from your peers. This article presents the latest thinking from three leading CIOs on how to achieve IT agility while still controlling costs.

Smart Exchange is a column by Paula Klein, the Editor of Smart Enterprise Exchange, our exclusive membership program that provides IT executives with business-driven resources and interaction. In this column, Paula explores the renewed interest in mainframes.

Smart Trends presents the latest facts, developments and statistics for today’s CIOs.

How about you? How are you seizing opportunITy? I welcome your comments at editor@smartenterprisemag.com.