Increased business pressures, government regulations and tightening purse strings are changing the role of CFOs in companies across the country. Since CFOs are responsible for setting financial priorities to meet business goals, as well as meeting the letter and spirit of regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), they need greater control over spend and visibility into the audit trail from purchase to payment. It’s critical, particularly now, that CFOs establish and use business analytics to know where their organization stands financially at any given moment, and to determine how to most effectively manage spend and cash flow. Therefore, CFOs are taking an active role in driving technology decisions that address their organizations’ business needs.

These changes are causing shifts in the CIO role as well. Today’s businesses expect extremely fast response times from the CIO and the IT department when requesting updates and new functionality. If the IT department is not able to deliver quickly enough, they are seeking hosted, or SaaS-based solutions to meet their business needs in a more timely manner. Many companies are evaluating CIO performance based on the business results that their technology investments deliver. ROI and addressing business needs become key measurements of technology initiatives alongside effective infrastructure and compliance with regulations. To address these changing expectations, CIOs are looking for ways to establish effective processes and solutions. 

Now, CFOs and CIOs have new opportunities to work together to address common business goals. They are uniting to build greater business agility through technology.

Following are ways they can collaborate to automate and improve financial processes for business benefit: 

• Develop and empower a cross-functional team to engage all the stakeholders in technology decisions: the CFO, CIO and business users. 
• Look for ways to improve and innovate your processes. Identify and measure improvements using key performance indicators (KPIs) and take small, incremental steps toward continuous improvement. 
• Use agile solutions that will allow you to make changes as you learn more about your needs, as well as adapt to ever-changing business and market requirements. The technology you select should be scalable to incorporate growth and be able to address different tax, currency and government regulations in countries worldwide. The solution must also easily integrate with your existing ERP, HR and account system infrastructure.
• Consider implementing Shared Service Centers (SSCs) to standardize on best practices throughout your organization, improve processes and benefit from cost savings. 

Increasing business demands in a spiraling economy mandate that companies leverage technology to cut costs, streamline operations and meet key business goals. In this environment there is a tremendous opportunity for CFOs and CIOs to become more closely aligned to provide greater business value for their organizations enterprise-wide. 

Andrew Jesse is the VP of Professional Services at Basware, a leading provider of software solutions that automate the Purchase-to-Pay process for enterprises around the world.

For more information or for email addresses, contact Basware at 203-487-7905, or visit http://www.basware.com/us.

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