I was fortunate to start my professional career in an environment that maybe best captured how modern IT can help transform a company. When I started at Timken in 1985, we were launching the first new steel mill to be built in the US in a quarter century. The production and business processes of this mill were completely interwoven with hierarchical control systems, automated scheduling and intelligent modeling solutions. In my many years there, I learn then that the real value of IT must be measured in how it drives a business forward.Fast forward to this century and we find the technology of today is radically changed and improved from those days. However, the mandate that the value of IT can only be measure as a function of business enablement or business differentiator remains the same. I suspect most CIOs have read Nicholas Carr's provocative HBR article titled "IT Doesn't Matter". Instead of reading this as a statement of fact, I have used this to drive my behavior. I firmly believe that IT does and should matter but only when IT organizations are in lock step with their overall organization's goals, objectives and success factors. This means that IT organizations need to not only focus on cost take out through automation, they need to drive the business forward with intelligent systems, new business enablement, improved customer engagement solutions and improved associate experiences.I feel extremely fortunate to be in the Technology Strategist role at Microsoft at this time in our company's history. We are so well positioned to help IT organizations deliver on these core principals. In my position, I get to have these conversations with my customers every day. I get to listen to them. I get to learn their business. I get to occasionally influence their plans. This is often quite challenging but always rewarding for me and my customers. While we may have disagreements, we each want to ensure that IT does indeed matter.