Survey reveals final sign-off for IT projects usually lies with IT, not CFO
A survey has revealed that the final say in technology procurement decisions in large companies now typically lies with IT, rather than the CFO. The Register’s latest research into buying and procurement surveyed over 1,100 technology professionals from a broad range of industries and found that security and cost savings are the top priorities for companies across the board during IT procurement.
Security was named as the top priority and main key driver by 45.7 per cent of respondents while cost-savings were named by 35.2 per cent of respondents.
The Register’s report stated: “Drilling into the raw data a little further showed they were far and away the biggest driver at financial, banking and insurance organisations. It seems likely that all tech buyers will pay more attention to value for money and TCO for the foreseeable future.”
Cloud migration was mentioned by 31.2 per cent of those surveyed and IT Ops and management were cited by 29.5 per cent. Digitalisation of business areas, gaining insights from data and compliance were all listed by roughly a quarter of respondents.
The report goes on to say that 41.9 per cent of respondents cited IT specialists and enterprise architects as the key people within their organisations to lead the business cases for technology purchases.
The report said: “IT specialists and enterprise architects become even more influential when it comes to recommending solutions, being cited by over half of our respondents. The CIO drops back to 15.9 per cent of cases here, behind heads of function, CTO/chief architect and even LOB and end users. Just under 13 per cent of respondents said a steering committee was involved in recommending technology, and 11.1 per cent cited a procurement team."
"It’s worth noting that over a quarter of organisations have more than ten people involved in decision making. However, it’s the CIO who makes the final call in 23.8 per cent of organisations globally, while 22.7 per cent leave the final choice to the CFO/finance department.”
