It does not seem that long ago that the major complaint was of IT directors rarely having a seat on the company board.

Technology is no longer an optional extra, was Computing’s oft-repeated refrain. IT decisions must not only be made at the highest level, but are an unavoidable element of every strategic consideration.

Thankfully, that particular drum no longer needs quite so much banging. The majority of IT directors are now chief information officers (CIOs), with a place in the boardroom.

Even the public sector has caught up, with the Whitehall CIO Council providing a much-needed forum for technology-enabled business strategy.

In fact, things have now moved along so far that even the CIO role is sometimes viewed as obsolete.

With major technology infrastructure upgrades completed, some big names ­ such as Boots and House of Fraser ­ have scrapped the CIO position altogether. The IT manager can run the systems, and the top-level strategy and business accountability has been absorbed into the wider role of the finance director.

In this context, Sumitomo Mitsui’s creation of a single post taking charge of all aspects of security is an interesting development.

For a bank that nearly lost £220m to a two-pronged heist, an integrated system to run physical and electronic security ­ that links door passes and CCTV with PC access profiles and network tracking ­ is a sensible move, the result of a lesson well-learned.

But, in a wider context, it is also the logical next step to accepting that there are no IT decisions, only business decisions. In such an environment, it makes little sense to treat buildings and filing cabinets differently from PCs and databases.

There will always be a need for technology experts. But what business still needs the most is the ability to see technology as a part of everyday life. Consumers are increasingly behaving that way, now business needs to catch up.

The doom-mongers are dusting off their sandwich boards.

Northern Rock is being propped up by the taxpayer. Oil is at $100 a barrel. And how long global economic stability will last is anybody’s guess. Put simply, say the alarmists, the end is nigh.

In such a light the (relatively) frugal Christmas spending of UK consumers looks like good sense ­ though the highest-ever spend at Sainsbury’s does suggest a drowning of sorrows instead.

But unlike the last major economic upset, when the dot com bubble burst, this time the technology sector is not at the eye of the storm. In fact, assuming the fallout from the US sub-prime mortgage fiasco turns out to be turbulence rather than a tempest, the IT industry has much to gain.

Last week, a CBI report on the financial services industry stated that technology investment plans are at their highest level since 1997, even as business volumes are falling at their fastest since 1991.

And alongside the almost uniformly gloomy Christmas trading figures from high-street retailers were uniformly impressive rises in online sales. Marks & Spencer might have been down 2.2 per cent overall, but its web sales were up by almost half.

Sceptics may say that e-commerce is starting from such a low base that huge rises are not as meaningful as they appear. But a trend is a trend, particularly when it is in the shadow of a looming recession.

Financial institutions are looking for IT-enabled efficiency to help them through a sticky patch. And consumers, keener than ever for a bargain, are increasingly finding it on the internet.

Confidence in technology ­ both as an entity and as a business proposition ­ took a battering at the end of the 1990s. Now is the time to reclaim lost ground.

Straitened economic conditions play to technology’s key selling points: speed, efficiency, lower overheads and so on.

So put away the sandwich board, stop rounding up the animals two-by-two, and get online and spend. Your economy needs you.

For banks to become the first point of contact for customers who are victims of online fraud makes sense.

The old, round-the-houses reporting process was unnecessary, ineffectual and only added to the confusion surrounding electronic crime. Last week’s change simplifies the process and makes official that which is already common practice.

And, while no one wants to admit it, it is also a step towards London’s Metropolitan police force taking over the role left vacant by the dissolution last year of the National High-Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU).

Online crime is not like burglary. Perpetrators do not seek out a specific victim for a specific reason – an expensive stereo by an open window, for example. E-crimes such as phishing instead work by volume targeting of entirely generic quarry. So it makes absolute sense for attacks to be reported en bloc by the banks rather than piecemeal by individual victims.

Yet the fact that it makes so much sense serves only to highlight the counter-intuitive absurdity of dissolving the NHTCU in the first place.

The decision that the most fragmented, non-geographic of crimes – most of them perpetrated from abroad – should be investigated by local police forces never made any sense. The fact that the majority of local e-crime units are understaffed, underskilled and underfunded just adds weight to the argument.

Ever since the NHTCU’s demise there has been talk of a central investigative role for the Met. But a key sticking point is the money – an extra job for the Met would require extra funding from the cash-strapped Home Office.

Giving increased responsibility to the private sector not only fits the type of crime, it also keeps a lot of the legwork away from the police and avoids having to make a commitment to a new role for the Met.

Regardless of official statements, last week’s change is a clear step back to a national response to e-crime. And on that basis, it is to be applauded.