In The Shoes of A CFO

Bangalore: A CIO should delve in the mindset of a CFO in order to gain entry in the C-suite segment. A business is all about profit and that is what matters in the end- revenue earned. As such, CIOs should shed their technology cloak and put forward their viewpoints in financial terms if they want a part in the executive decision making, reports Perry Rotella of Forbes.

Board level executives are not very keen to understand in depth the pros and cons of prevailing technologies. They usually render them as gibberish and as such the CIOs fail to extract the due attention from them in order to address the reigning hurdles in the IT sector.

As such, CIOs should take a few pointers from their financial counterparts and try to explain the executives, the monetary implications in adopting or discarding a particular technology. They speech should be aligned from the business point of view rather than being confined to the technological aspects only.

Only then they may be expected to get invited to board level meetings, finalizing the strategies for future course of action.

Presenting their views from the perspective of the share holders will also earn them an automatic entry in the board level meetings as that is the language CEOs are more inclined on hearing.

Therefore, if a CIO wishes to properly communicate his/her concerns, he/she should get familiar with the financial metrics so that they can explain cases related to server and desktop virtualization, consolidation of data center facilities and network links, eliminating such as multiple help desks with clarity.