IT STRATEGY ISSUE SIX The Official Publication of ELITE, the British Computer Society's Forum for IT Directors Edited by John Lamb

IT Strategy is an official publication of ELITE, the British Computer Society's Forum for IT Directors. IT Strategy is a highly prestigious quarterly publication focussing on both strategic IT business issues and recent developments in information technology.

The British Computer Society is the leading professional body in the field of computers and information systems. Formed in 1957, it has approximately 37,500 members world-wide. The Society is concerned with the development of computing and its effective application. Under its Royal Charter, granted in 1984, it also has responsibilities for education and training, public awareness and above all the maintenance of standards, quality and professionalism.

The Society is also an Engineering Institution, with over 7,000 members registered as Incorporated and Chartered Engineers.

Through its structure of professional and non-professional grades the Society provides a unique service to all those concerned with information systems. BCS professional membership grades are a widely acknowledged demonstration of professional competence and its codes of practice set high standards of ethics and accountability

ELITE is the forum of the BCS for debate among senior IT management in the UK. It is run for and by the most senior IT Directors and Managers. The overall aim of ELITE is to be the leading platform for senior UK Information Technology management, providing its members with opportunities to listen to informed opinion, exchange ideas and discuss common issues relating to innovative application, effective operation and strategic development within their IT environments. In conjunction with these activities, ELITE provides Industry, Commerce, Government and business as a whole, with authoritative leadership and direction on all IT and IS matters.

One of the major roles of ELITE is to exert a strong lobbying influence on suppliers to ensure that they provide information systems products with the necessary quality and performance to meet the continuously changing and more demanding needs of business.

ELITE also promotes the recognition of excellence in IS Management through its administration of the annual BCS IS Management Awards.

IT Strategy focuses on strategic IT issues; on how to make IT work for businesses and improve company performance alongside examining ways of exploiting the full potential of information systems from existing and new IT products.

The publication offers senior IT management all they need to know about benefiting from information technology and information management through case studies and interviews with the most influential key figures in the IT industry today.

Feature articles look at ways of achieving improved productivity and profitability through the effective use of IT. The magazine covers all aspects of IT strategy and it stresses the importance of IT in the operation and profitability of a business. In addition, it reports on ELITE activities.

John Lamb has covered the IT industry as a journalist since 1977. He began his career in IT as a reporter on Computing magazine, before helping to launch trade weekly Computer Talk. By 1980 he was working as a freelance for national newspapers and specialist magazines including New Scientist, Datamation and ComputerWorld.

In 1988 John was appointed editor of Computer Weekly, published by Reed Business Publishing. During his eight years with the magazine he won a number of journalism awards and saw the magazine become the highest revenue earning business-to-business publication in Britain.

In 1996 he joined Sunday Business, a new business newspaper, to oversee the paper's IT coverage. He set up ComputerAge, the information systems supplement to Sunday Business which broke new ground in presenting technology to a management audience.

More recently, as Editor-in-Chief of InformationWeek John oversaw the redesign and relaunch of the magazine as a weekly publication for CMP Media. John is now conference director of the Start-Up! Series of events for young IT companies.

Published in A4 format and printed on high quality paper, IT Strategy contains contributions from industry experts, eminent business leaders, the heads of major international organisations, renowned academics and internationally recognised consultants.

Editorial contributions are also be sought from members of ELITE and transcripts of speeches from the ELITE meetings are featured from time to time within appropriate issues.

The publication is broad in scope covering use of IT throughout all sectors, including:

Transportation	Manufacturing	Healthcare
Defence	IT Services	Public Sector
Banking and Insurance	Education	Exploration Industries

IT Strategy covers all professions, and looks at how IT has changed the focus of work business practices.

The publication is distributed on a free of charge basis to IT Directors and senior IT executives in the top 10,000 companies by turnover in the UK and overseas. Approximately 80% of the circulation is the UK and 20% overseas. Circulation includes all ELITE members and senior members of the British Computer Society.

IT Strategy appears also with selected extracts on the web sites of Sovereign, the British Computer Society and ELITE with two-way links between these sites. All advertisers are offered a minimum of 600 words Company Profile on the IT Strategy and Elite web site, together with logo and 2 illustrations. Profiles are placed on the site immediately, remain for 3 months after publication of the relevant issue and can be updated on a  monthly basis.