My POV: While not the answer (yet) for every question, engineered systems give strategic CIOs considerable latitude to devote more people and energy toward innovative customer-facing initiatives, and simultaneously alleviate the need for CIOs to pour so many budget dollars into low-value integration work that generates little or no competitive advantage.
Jesse Robbins, Chief Community Officer and co-founder of OpsCode, creator of the Chef systems integration framework for the cloud, pointed out in October 2007 that working such magic creates a competitive advantage.