Recently I’ve been looking into how big data is influencing the relationship between IT and other business functions. There’s a consensus that end users, as business domain experts, are going to have increasing influence over investments in data and the technology to analyze it. You can already see this happening: I wrote last month about how Atrius Health transformed its analytics organization.

Data management and analytics experts in IT, in turn, are going to need to get more business-savvy. You would think CEOs would be starting to push this by making experience working in data-driven organizations and building business-focused database teams a criterion when hiring a new CIO. But an executive recruiter I know tells me that, so far, that isn’t the case. Expertise with enterprise data comes up in searches for enterprise architects (understandably so). But not, so far, when companies are searching for new CIOs.

I wonder if this recruiter’s experience reflects the market generally. And if so, does it say anything about 1) how much the C-suite understands about big data challenges and 2) the likelihood of success with early big data investments? Would love your thoughts.