Former Boots IT chief Rob Fraser has joined services specialist CSC as the firm's vice president of retail, technology and consumer business - a move that raises some important questions.

Fraser's beat will cover UK, Ireland and the Netherlands - and he will report to Nick Wilson, president of CSC’s Northern European operations.

"With technology becoming increasingly more important in the consumer industry, understanding the customer and helping to shape and develop services that enhance the client experience will be key to my role," says Fraser, who began his IT career in 1985 at Marks and Spencer. He then held business management roles at Lafarge Redland Aggregates and Andersen Consulting, before joining Boots in 1997.

Back in November, Computing Business ran a couple of pieces about Fraser's departure from Boots. Writer Joe Devo suggested the move should be seen in the wider context of other transformations, specifically a potential move away from the CIO title at major UK organisations:

With their decisions to drop the title of chief information officer (CIO) or IT director from their boards, the new owners of Boots and House of Fraser prompted suggestions that the end is nigh for boardroom technology leaders and that, just maybe, there is no longer any room at the top for today’s crop of IT leaders.

Sources have suggested the work of Boots’ former IT director, Rob Fraser, came to a natural end. After a six-year overhaul of the company’s IT systems, a decision was made to drop the role of IT director.

Fraser is clearly not the first IT leader to make a move to 'the dark side'. For example, John Worth, CIO at financial services specialist Prudential, took a partner role at consultant Ernst & Young a couple of years ago.

But decisions to move into IT provision, rather than implementation, suggest an interesting trend: what is the explanation?

• Is an obsession with the alignment between technology and business underplaying the role of IT?
• Do some IT leaders believe the room to lead change at blue-chip organisations is limited?
• Are CIOs losing their power in relation to finance directors?
• Or is it a case of more opportunities, and better terms and conditions, in the service sector?

The answer for many over-stretched and under-appreciated CIOs is probably all the above - and a bit more, too.

Further reading

• CIOs will need to transform to survive
• Career moves: Robin Terrell is John Lewis web MD
• Career moves: Steve Markwell is new NCC CEO
• Career moves: Carl Powell becomes Unipart CEO
• Modernise to beat IT and skills obsolesence

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Want to contact the writer? Email Mark Samuels