More than 1,000 business technology professionals attended Forrester Research’ class=”newpage” target=”_blank”s (Nasdaq: FORR) IT Forum, which concluded today in Las Vegas. Despite businesses’ ongoing budget and personnel cuts due to the recession, IT Forum demonstrated to attendees spanning IT roles such as CIOs, Enterprise Architecture professionals, and Sourcing & Vendor Management professionals that now is the right time for IT to show that it’s business savvy and re-establish its value to the business.

Forrester Chairman and CEO George F. Colony told the audience how IT will demonstrate business value after what he calls the “Gateway Recession,” a portal connecting two very different eras. As the recession abates, prevailing and former industry powers will fade or become irrelevant because of their failure to embrace digital technologies. Those companies that thrive will leverage IT to adopt new sales channels and, as Baby Boomers exit the workforce, will put in place the technologies needed to support the next generation of IT professionals. Colony says CEOs will face several challenges in the post-Gateway period. Read about them here.

The three-day Event, Forrester’s largest Event for business technology professionals, had more than 100 track sessions focused on how all roles within the IT organization can adopt a business value point of view. The following business technology leaders gave keynote addresses at IT Forum that supported the Event’s theme of driving business innovation:

  • David Barnes, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer, UPS
  • Chris Capossela, Senior Vice President, Information Worker Product Management Group, Microsoft
  • Dana Deasy, Group Chief Information Officer and Group Vice President, Information Technology & Services, BP
  • Gary Heil, Founder and Consultant, Center For Innovative Leadership
  • Phil McKinney, Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Personal Systems Group, Hewlett-Packard Company
  • Robert W. Moffat, Jr., Senior Vice President and Group Executive, Systems and Technology Group, IBM
  • Tom Peck, Senior Vice President and CIO, Levi Strauss & Company
  • Richard M. Soley, Ph.D., Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Object Management Group

More than 80 Forrester analysts led sessions in nine comprehensive role tracks that were designed to provide role-specific guidance on communicating the value that IT brings to the business. Attendees also had an opportunity to meet one-on-one with Forrester analysts, network with peers, see demonstrations of Forrester’s methodologies – the Forrester Wave™, TechRadar™, and Total Economic Impact™ – and attend one of two pre-conference Workshops, The IT Balanced Scorecard or Justifying Technology Investments.

The Event also served as a backdrop for meetings of the Forrester Leadership Boards, Forrester’s exclusive community of leading executives worldwide. The Leadership Boards meetings that preceded IT Forum included the: Applications & Program Management Council, CIO Group, Enterprise Architecture Council, Information & Knowledge Management Council, Infrastructure & Operations Council, Sourcing & Vendor Management Council, Security & Risk Management Council, and Analyst Relations Council.

IT Forum had more than 20 sponsors, including platinum sponsors HP and IBM. Gold sponsors for IT Forum were ASG, CompuCom, Laserfiche, and Microsoft.