Mid-Air Collision? The CIO/CFO Cloud Computing Debate

Grazed from Business2Community. Author: Keith Tilley.

Successfully managing IT strategy is no simple task, particularly when the decision makers’ roles vary from company to company. Research findings from Gartner and Financial Executives Research Foundation, for example, found that 42 per cent of organisations said their IT division reports to the CFO, 33 per cent to the CEO, 16 per cent to the COO, 2 per cent to a chief administrative officer and 7 per cent to other officers.

So with finance frequently involved in sanctioning IT expenditure, it’s no surprise that CIOs and CFOs have often had a troubled relationship. As cloud computing starts to become part of companies’ IT strategies, what effect has this had on the CIO/CFO relationship? Do the views between the CIO and CFO remain opposing? Is this conflict holding up adoption of the technology? And what is needed for both parties to capitalise on its potential benefits? Let’s explore…

I recently conducted two pieces of research with Vanson Bourne – the first surveying 100 CFOs, the second reaching out to 250 CIOs. Within these, a sense of conflict between today’s CFOs and CIOs did emerge – specifically in the finding that 42 per cent of CIOs said it was their CFO colleagues that were opposed to a move to the cloud…

Read more from the source @ http://www.business2community.com/cloud-computing/mid-air-collision-ciocfo-cloud-computing-debate-0843700#VJZh1Do8IL4iQ4yI.99

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