With this issue of Cutter Benchmark Review, we return our focus to the strategic role of the IS function and to issues of innovation. We do so on the basis of the recognition that it is the norm today for the IT shop to be, or have the potential to be, a boundary-spanning function.

This month's Cutter Benchmark Review marks the third installment in our annual series on IT budgets and the yearly IT budgeting process. The budgeting process is one of critical importance to IT and business professionals in our subscriber base. It is the importance of this process that leads us to address it each year. Doing so also allows us to comment on year-over-year changes and monitor how the priorities of the organizations we survey change over time.