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Ernst & Young, a global leader in transaction and advisory services, assurance and tax asked more than 650 CFOs around the world and concluded that the digital transformation in the organization involves a closer collaboration between 2 departments that have been distant for so long: Finance and IT.

The collaboration between CFOs and CIOs is undeniable:
– For CFOs, thanks to digital transformation, financial data is more accessible, in a shorter time and with analytical capabilities more advanced
– For CIOs, the finance department has the capacity to help them better manage costs and profitability of IT projects and investments.

Today, the financial well-being of companies, thanks to the digital economy is closely depending on the CIO-CFO relationship. 

CFO and CIO: partners for performance…

– According to the survey led by E&Y, 61% of CFOs declare that their collaboration with CIO has increased over the past three years
– 71% of CFOs say that there has been an increase in their involvement with the IT agenda

These percentages reflect the fact that the relation between the two is much more important than before but also reflect CFOs & CIO’s awareness concerning their collaboration’s potential … But struggle to balance their responsibility and to fully understand themselves …

– CIOs declare that CFOs are too much costs-sensitive, not enough balancing the strategic ambitions of projects.
– CFOs declare that they are lacking understanding of IT issues.

CFOs motivations to collaborate with CIO:

– 32% of CFO said that one of the motivation is to obtain more precise, accessible and available data
– 31% to improve information capabilities and business analyze
– 28% to consolidate systems
– 25% to understand better the value that IT brings
– 24% to enter in the digital area

Tony Klimas, Global Finance Performance Improvement Advisory Leader at E&Y, believes that CFOs motivations are based on an awareness concerning IT investment. He declared that “CFOs are becoming much more aware of the strategic value of IT and what it has to offer”, “There is a growing focus not only on what IT costs, but also on the value it brings to the organization.”

CIOs and CFOs : partners to drive the digital transformation

Digital transformation is becoming a major challenge for companies. From our point of view, we think at Shortways that the success of this approach involves the engagement from the people. In order for that, organizations need to provide business applications users with on the job self-support and self-learning and community management. So that they‘ll be able to adapt to these new practices, processes and tools but also to adapt to a new way of working.

According to a recent study from TNS Sofres, only 27% of employees feel completely comfortable with new digital practices. As a consequence, in addition to CFOs and CIOs collaboration, the mentoring and the on job learning of the staff is a key factor to drive digital transformation towards a success

Source : EY.com