Beiersdorf's Shull doesn't want to be sidelined by his business colleagues Photo by Erica Berger

Lee Shull is the business applications manager for Beiersdorf in North America. Beiersdorf makes grooming products such as the Nivea line of creams and lotions. Shull is also the de facto North American CIO, since the VP of IT resigned last summer. "When people need to get things done, they usually come to me," he says.

Well, not all the time. Shull is irked that his colleagues in supply chain operations have taken it upon themselves to implement a collaborative planning, forecasting, and replenishment system without properly vetting it with IT. Ditto for a business intelligence application in the sales department. "Some of this stuff seems to be going off in its own directions," he says. "I'm trying to rein them in."

Good luck, Lee. Whether through experience, training, or cultural osmosis, more people in business know more about technology than ever before--or at least they think they do. And while many

CIOs consider it a good thing to have tech-savvy colleagues with whom they can talk turkey, for some it's a case of a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Senior execs, line-of-business managers, and even end users are trying to influence IT policy or, worse yet, attempting end runs around the CIO to get favorite IT projects or products deployed.

Ever since computers moved out of the glass house, there have been rogue programming and shadow IT operations. Then, as now, the problem for the CIO has been accountability, enforcing standards, and making sure IT systems are able to share the data they need to share.

But today the level of technology sophistication in companies is wider and deeper. Gone are the days when top execs were proud of having their e-mails printed out for them; now many have IT experience on their resumés, and almost all wield BlackBerrys with fierce determination. For younger employees, laptops and cell phones are a way of life. New forms of technology like software as a service and Web 2.0 promise the capabilities of enterprise applications without the usual hassles--i.e., the involvement of the IT department.

For CIOs, the implications of this trend aren't trivial, coming at a time of transition: Tech chiefs will either have to step up in the organizational pecking order, or down, many observers predict. Some see a new role emerging for them, based on the ubiquity of technology, one that has more to do with business processes than network and infrastructure arcana. Smart CIOs are embracing their more technically adept colleagues to help them advance their companies' business agendas.