Companies with strong CFO-CIO relationships are 51% more likely to easily find funding for digital initiatives, a Gartner survey shows.When the CIO-CFO relationship is strong a company is 18% more likely to achieve its intended business outcomes.Of all the C-suite relationships at organizations, one of the most strategically important in the age of digital business is the one between the chief information officer and the chief financial officer.
"Generating higher revenue or asset productivity from discretionary technology spending and digitalization can help offset this margin pressure," he added. "This is why CFOs and CIOs need to be 'joined at the hip;' to make sure that the benefits of digitalization initiatives are being extracted and harvested."
Synchrony CFO Brian Wenzel "is an indispensable business partner," Healy says. "He provides more than the means to help us with our strategy. He also helps to embrace implementing new technologies and driving our digital transformation." Since Synchrony's initial public offering in 2014, the firm has invested $5 billion in cloud, artificial intelligence and machine learning, and in developing technology that allows partners to easily add Synchrony services such as credit prescreening technology to their applications, Healy says. "This investment was based on our CFO understanding how this technology can propel us for growth," she says.
The first element — getting along — is the easy part. "A majority of CFOs and CIOs would say that they have collegial relationships," Rathindran says. "Many even cite a constructive tension in the relationship. However, when you layer on the second element—a business-centric relationship rather than a purely IT function-centric relationship—that's where the partnership seems to be on less solid footing.
Database software provider MongoDB also benefits from a strong working relationship between its technology and finance leaders.