BizSugar.com › Technology › CIO, CFO, IT and Procuring the Cloud

For as long as there has been high technology use in business, there has been a struggle between the enterprise CFO and CIO for the power to make IT purchase decisions. It isn’t rocket science… the reasons for the challenge are fairly straightforward. The CFO wants to know what the expected return on the investment will be. The CIO, on the other hand, recognizes that there is rarely a straight line to be drawn between IT expenditures and near-term positive business outcomes. Sometimes it takes a while to fully realize the benefits of an IT project… and sometimes it’s necessary to spend the money just to maintain status quo.

While there may be indicators that the CFO’s influence in the enterprise is extending into areas where the CIO traditionally ruled (due – at least in part – to SaaS and the Cloud) there are also indicators that the role of the CIO is evolving rather than losing relevance.