India, July 17 -- The Internet is packed with IT planning advice from many different sources, including vendors, research firms, websites and colleagues. While much of this advice can be useful, even valuable, a lot of it can be either self-serving or misleading.

So where can an IT leader go for advice that will actually help his or her organization plan knowledgably and economically for future enterprise needs? Sadly, there is no easy answer to this question. "IT planning is a challenging task," acknowledged Param Vir Singh, an associate professor of business technologies at the Carnegie Mellon University Tepper School of Business. "Technology evolves at a very fast pace [and] IT needs to support most business processes, which may evolv...