As you read the tips culled from conversations with eight CIOs fromvarious industries, it's useful to remember that one industry'stypical profit is different from another. In bread-and-butterindustries, such as agriculture, trucking, contract manufacturing andconstruction, where stiff market competition and price pressures meanslim profits, CIOs are used to making sure every dollar is well spent.They have a lot of practice running IT with locks on their wallet andboth eyes focused on their company's bottom line. These CIOs say ROIis the barometer by which projects get approved. Fast payback is amust. Anything considered long term can take a backseat. And answer noto new purchase pitches without regret. In general, single-digitreturns are what you'll find here.

The following six tips are for CIOs from the penny-pinchingall-pros.

1 "Almost New" Is Better Than You Think

When it came time to update his infrastructure hardware, Byron Goodwinfaced a tough situation. As much as he would have liked to buy somespanking new servers and routers, Goodwin, CIO of the wholesalegroceries distributor Associated Food Stores (2000 profit margin: 9percent), knew his annual $8 million IT budget just couldn't take thehit.

So when he needed new hardware, he didn't pick up the phone to callDell or Compaq. Instead, he called a couple of resellers.