Application Development

Any good Business Analyst will tell you that IT and business speak in different languages.  Good CIOs and IT Infrastructure Management know that CFOs have a language all their own.  “That being said, it is the money people who generally stand in the way of engineers and technologists and the spending required to accomplish great things with IT.”, according to an CTOEdge article.  CIOs generally don’t speak in the language of the CFO when making spending requests, so we walk away feeling that they “just don’t get it”.  Here are 10 areas where we, as the promoters of IT, can begin to communicate better with the CFO.

1.  Think TCO, not ROI

To the CFO, return on investment is how much money you’re going to give back to the company. Let’s face it. Most IT projects — no matter how compelling — don’t bring “return” to the organization like an additional sales person, a new marketing campaign, or a new product launch.  Preach total cost of ownership (TCO); repeat it until you are blue in the face.  Whether business application development, web application development, IT infrastructure investment; you can demonstrate “fiscal stewardship” through cost reduction or increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty.

2.  Cloud Computing

CFOs like what they hear about cloud computing as a cost saver. Don’t fight them on it.

3.  Green IT

Are you surprised when the CFO is not willing to pay a premium to keep the environment cleaner?  The reality is that no green projects exist unless they have a better TCO.  So whether to upgrade your IT infrastructure, better IT infrastructure cooling, or saving space for your IT infrastructure you can build a strong business case of the decreased TCO and community relations intangibles of being an “environmentally conscious” firm.

4, 5 and 6.  Virtualize, Virtualize and VIRTUALIZE

“This subject takes up three spots because there are three key virtualization targets -- servers, desktop and storage. But again, the key here is how to justify and how now NOT to justify.”  Again build your TCO case for virtualization, but be realistic in your cost savings estimates.  Many times virtualization projects are viewed as unsuccessful because they did not meet the upfront cost estimates.  Be sure to include high traffic times such as end-of-month close periods.

7.  Adopt IT-Centric Business Continuity

Over the years responsibility for business continuity have been put on IT management.  This needs to change.  Organizations need to understand that there are three phases to a business continuity plan; event response, disaster recovery and business continuity.  With the financial impact on the organization of disaster recovery and business continuity, business management must be involved and responsible for these areas.  It should not be IT management’s responsibility to determine which business units are most important.

8.  Align with the Big Picture

Along with TCO, build your requests showing how the request aligns with the business objectives and goals of the organization.

9.  Proactive Cost Reduction

Boy does that sound like another way to say TCO to you?  Take a proactive stance on reducing cost.  The article showed how to reduce cost of document retention.

10.  Reduce Data Center Costs

The organization’s data center is usually the center of the IT infrastructure, both in physical space and cost.  Just as in application software development, modular building of a data center can cut cost of the IT infrastructure through avoiding construction cost, reduced cooling cost and reduced capital expenditures.

“While the relationship between CFO and CIO can sometimes have more debits than credits, it is definitely worth the investment in time and effort to highlight IT projects in terms the CFO will understand.”