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Information Systems (IS) and Technologies assume a wide variety of roles within companies, ranging from operational to strategic support of the company. This fact puts pressure on managers, who are required to manage these investments properly. This chapter presents a study conducted with several Chief Information Officers from large Iberian companies with the purpose of identifying and characterizing the roles played by IS and the motivations currently behind their adoption. The findings of this study reveal the reasons why IS and technologies are being adopted by Iberian companies are evolving and that, while the adoption of certain types of systems such as Enterprise Resource Planning systems is now consolidated, the adoption of other systems like Business Intelligence is expected to increase significantly in the near future.

Nowadays, Universities and other Training Institutions need to clearly identify the Information Technology (IT) skills that companies demand from IT practitioners. This is essential not only for offering appropriate and reliable university degrees, but also to help future IT professionals on where to focus in order to achieve better job positions. In an attempt to address this issue, this study rely on 102 Chief Information Officers, from Iberian large companies, to characterize current IT professionals and what is expected from future hirings. Results revealed that IT Technicians and Senior Analysts are the predominant positions and also that future hiring will request candidates with at least two to five years of work experience. The two most important skills found were core functions at the IT department: business knowledge and user support. In contrast, traditional competences such as web development and management of emerging technologies were less demanded.