This paper describes demand management and its strategic planning life cycle as related to a company's businesses. A key to good demand management is to know the demand management process life cycle, starting with strategic planning. Strategic planning is important for aligning an enterprise's IT and business goals in order to successfully complete projects on schedule and on budget. This way effective strategic demand management will be feasible. To achieve these goals, senior business executives must liaise well with the CIO responsible for managing IT. CIOs are currently playing a very important role in decisionmaking of the company's business and are responsible for strategic initiatives to help with strategic planning and identifying opportunities for automation to improve business processes and reduce costs of investment in IT. © 2008 IEEE.