27 Feb 2012
Nearly half (43 per cent) of 203 senior finance professionals in the UK believe that the CIO role will merge with the CFO role, according to a study released by IT services provider Getronics.
The research also found that 17 per cent of the finance professionals thought that the CIO role would disappear altogether.
The study was the focus of a Getronics roundtable discussion asking the question ‘Is the CFO the new CIO?'
The study showed that 77 per cent of CFOs have claimed greater responsibility for IT decisions in the past one to two years.
"CFOs have looked at IT more because there is an increase in IT projects meaning more money is being spent. This means the CFO has to look over the project," said Karl Howarth, CFO of P&O Ferries.
Howarth believes that many IT projects have failed because rather than focusing on how they will benefit the business, they have focused on the technology on offer.
"This means there needs to be someone with a commercial insight [such as the CFO] that can also look at the plans," he said.
Trevor Hanna, CIO of Associated British Foods, disputed this assumption.
"The CIO role seems easy at the outset but a CFO would find it more difficult than anticipated if given an IT role," he said.
Hanna said that CIOs have to be stubborn in order to get their ideas across.
"Although CFOs may be looking at a project from a commercial angle, they may not see the same benefits as CIOs; especially because many of the benefits are hard to quantify," he said.
Howarth said that the soft skills necessary to be a CIO do not differ greatly from those of a CFO but he accepted that the knowledge of technology and translating it into business value is harder to grasp.
"It is not about what the right answer is [for an IT project], it's what gives you the most options. How it will affect the future and which doors it closes and opens," he said.
Hanna questioned why a CFO would want to take on a CIO role.
"Are they interested in technology? Or in the issues of technology? Have they got a cost problem or a problem with the service? It depends on what part of the role they want to tackle," he said.
The online survey was conducted by independent consultancy Longhouse and took into account the views of 203 senior finance professionals in UK organisations that employ over 1,000 people.
The Getronics study follows similar research from Gartner last year in its annual Financial Executives International Technology Study.
CFOs are actually obsessed with numbers and cash flow forecasts etc. It's their job.
Yes, there is a type of CFO out there who drives business forward, but let's face it, he's pretty damn rare. Businesses are run not by the finance team but by individual business unit managers, most of whom will regard their colleagues in finance as a pain in the proverbial who get in the way of effective risk taking with fears.
Posted by: John Stephens 28 Feb 2012
Does a CFO really believe that the only way to run a business is by looking at the numbers?
Of course keeping the books balanced and managing cash flow is esential but without innovation, staff development, technolological development, inspiring leadership, a CFO would end up manaing the books of a business with no future.
Or does this story in fact highlight the problem with too much business thinking?
Posted by: George 27 Feb 2012
Computing conducted its own study of IT decision making in Q4 last year. The findings do support the idea that CFOs are more involved in a decision making than they have been previously. However, it is wrong to suggest that this is because the roles are merging: its got rather more to do with bean counters getting tough on budgets in tough economic times - and tough budgets do not necessarily equate with a better view of business value.
The Computing survey shows, conclusively in my view, that IT decisions start either with business unit management or the IT team itself - CFO involvement would be the exception rather than the rule (unless we are talking financial systems where a CFO might reasonably be considered to be a business manager).
IT teams do regularly report to the CFO. But that doesn't translate into the CFO scoping - for example - a project on desktop virtualisation. It does not translate into the CFO putting together a roadmap to the private cloud.
Posted by: Tom Wright 27 Feb 2012
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