Ann All covers the dynamic between the business and tech. During the Midmarket CIO Forum, she found the issue front-and-center with tech leaders. She compiled her thoughts, and observations from other show attendees on the topic, in a great blog post.
Below are her seven tips for forging a partnership with the CFO.
Click through for our Ann All’s seven great tips for building a partnership with your company’s top financial executive.
Make efforts to get to know the CIO better in non-business settings, such as over a lunch in which “shop talk” is kept to a minimum.
Work closely with the CFO to come up with IT solutions to problems that closely affect the CFO’s job, such as offering more transparency into financial numbers and helping ensure they are accurate.
Can the technical jargon. Use terms the CFO can understand and describe how technical projects affect the broader business. Rather than dwelling on technical issues such as bandwidth constraints or deployment requirements, talk about how the project can improve sales or reduce costs.
Dot all your “i’s” and cross all your “t’s” when submitting financial proposals. Include all relevant information: amount requested, vendors being used, project timing, which business unit the requested IT will support. If there’s a standard capital request form with standard boxes, make sure it’s completely filled out. It’s a good idea to have someone proof proposals before submitting to the CFO.
Consider taking a finance course or two. You aren’t trying for an MBA, but you want to be able to read — and understand — your company’s financial statements and to produce a coherent cost-benefit analysis. Finance courses will help.
Be forthcoming with information. CFOs hate surprises, so don’t try to cover up if a project is going over budget. Instead, tell the CFO of any problems and offer possible solutions. If project costs will run 20 percent over projections, be prepared to tell the CFO how the money can be recovered by cuts elsewhere in the IT budget.
Consider appointing an “internal CFO” within the IT department to take care of budgeting and financial accounting for IT. This should cut down on unexpected questions from the CFO and keep him or her happy with plenty of relevant reports written in financial terms.
