To that end, product development and management as well as projects that expand and improve customer sales, service and the fulfillment of orders will be top priorities for CIOs, according to McDonald.

The only wild card in the growth equation is the economy. If it continues to lurch toward a full-blown recession, McDonald expects CIOs to shift their focus back to operational effectiveness, as they did in 2002.

Prediction: More CIOs will take over shared services.

Fidelity announced in early December that it hired former Ford and Citigroup CIO Marv Adams as president of its newly created shared services organization. Executive recruiters expect more CIOs to follow in Adams's footsteps and assume responsibility for functions such as IT, HR, procurement and finance.

"As organizations continue to strive for efficiency, the CIO remains in a unique position to be the go-to person — the catalyst for shared services — because the CIO reaches across finance, HR [and] supply chain," says Paul Groce, the leader of search firm CTPartners' CIO practice. "They have the knowledge and reach that no other executive has." If the economy moves into a recession in '08, as some economists predict, more companies might move to shared services, thus opening more opportunities for CIOs. Call it the upside of the downside of the economy.

Prediction: More CIOs will assume responsibility for non-IT functions.

As CIOs prove their worth as business partners, they'll be rewarded with accountability for functions outside IT and they'll be given titles such as CIO and senior vice president in charge of customer service.

Anton Hios, vice president of Forrester Leadership Boards, sees many of the CIOs in Forrester's CIO group taking on business transformation, operations and process management. "Some CIOs we work with have even done so well with their project management office that they're [now] responsible for project management throughout their enterprises," he says.

Stephen Pickett, vice president and CIO of transportation services company Penske, says CIOs are well-positioned to move into operational roles outside of IT because of their experience thinking through complex situations and working their way through difficult-to-execute, high stress projects. "Any time you work on a project that can close your company, you learn a lot of lessons about how to keep it open," he says.

Dow Chemical's Dave Kepler is a CIO who has assumed increasing business responsibilities. Over the course of his nearly decade-long tenure as CIO at the chemical company, Kepler has taken on shared services, which includes customer service, purchasing, six sigma and supply chain, as well as Dow's environment, health, safety, security and sustainability activities.