Office of the CIO

There is so much opportunity to improve the IT function. But, when IT is hands-on running the critical Infrastructure & Operations (I&O), enterprise applications, IT third-party vendors, data and analytics, information security, and data privacy, while supporting digital transformation initiatives across the enterprise, where should you focus? We have found that these key areas are essential:

• Assess your IT organization and align to the business better
• Rationalize your applications to reduce duplication and technical debt
• Outsource to capable Managed Service Providers (MSP) and Managed Security Service Providers (MSSP) to free up key IT team members to focus on strategic business priorities

Mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures are challenging for all parts of the business and IT is right in the middle of it. The problem is that your IT team has a full-time critical role supporting the business as usual. Then, the transaction happens with compressed timeframes, heightened expectations, and technology complexity. The potential rewards and risks are high.

That’s where our CIO Advisory team can help. We provide IT-focused leadership and support to help you accelerate your M&A transaction, reduce risk, and improve post-close operations. We have a deep understanding of the challenges faced by IT teams during M&A, and we can help you develop a plan to address them.

The pace and scope of technology today requires new ways to cover the field and continuously support the business. Sometimes what is needed is interim CIO support to bridge a gap during leadership transition, or a trusted advisor that can help the CIO navigate complexity or IT Chief of Staff to serve as the CIO’s “right hand” to drive strategic planning, budgeting, operating model changes, IT operations, and oversight of key IT initiatives. In any of these cases, we assist our clients by providing interim technology leadership that can bridge or augment the current IT team to improve coverage and create better outcomes for the business.

The CIO and CFO roles intersect in many areas, including budgeting, Governance, Risk, & Compliance (GRC), strategy, enterprise transformation, ERP, data and analytics, AI, and others. We have worked successfully with CFOs and CIOs on many strategic initiatives and have seen the power of collaborating and solving problems together. This becomes most apparent in complex cross-business initiatives, such as corporate transactions and digital transformation initiatives.

We encourage CIO and CFO partnership to get better and faster results through a simple and effective approach that includes establishing an IT-finance governance structure (e.g., Transformation Management Office) for complex initiatives, holding regular meetings and working sessions between the CIO and CFO and their teams, sharing information and data openly and consistently, and identifying additional ways to collaborate on projects and initiatives that will deliver value to the organization.