The CFO is increasingly becoming a top technology investment decision maker in many organizations. The results of the 2012 Technology Issues for Financial Executives survey show that the CFO's role in technology decisions has increased year over year, resulting in more oversight and control of the IT function.
Gartner has released the results of the 2012 survey as the “Top 10 Findings From Gartner’s Financial Executives International CFO Technology Study,” by John Van Decker, Gartner’s VP Research. This annual survey of FEI members and other CFOs is jointly developed by Gartner, FEI’s Committee on Finance & IT (CFIT) and Financial Executives Research Foundation (FERF). The Gartner report is available for download on the
CFIT News webpage.
This Issue Alert will summarize some of the key findings from the survey, as detailed in the Gartner report:
Key Findings from the 2012 Technology Issues Survey
· Despite slow economic growth, CFOs expect conservative, steady IT spending.
· The CFOs role in IT investment has increased again in 2012.
· The 45% of IT leaders that report to the CFO are more than report to any other executive, and represent an increase of 3% over 2011.
· Business analytics needs technology improvement.
· CFOs are focused on business analytics and business applications more than on technology.
· Information, social, cloud and mobile technology trends are on CFOs' radar.
· Focusing on corporate performance management (CPM) projects, 63% of CFOs plan to upgrade business intelligence (BI), analytics and performance management in 2012.
· Despite advancements in strategy management technologies, CFOs still focus on lagging key performance indicators (KPIs) only.
· A pace-layered strategy for applications is needed (92% of CFOs believe IT doesn't provide transformation/differentiation).
· New applications in financial governance rank high on improving compliance and efficiency.