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CFO Europe - Press Release
Pulling the Plug
CFO's Often take the heat if IT Investments Flop.
Can doomed projects be stopped before it's too late?
"To err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer." This bit of folk wisdom-from an edition of Farmers' Almanac, of all places-neatly sums up the exasperation many executives feel with large-scale IT projects. From botched ERP implementations to screwed-up supply chain systems, IT project failure brings plenty of grief to Europe's boardrooms. And the most uncomfortable executive sitting around the board table is the CFO, who often takes the rap when IT projects go belly up.
This is because more and more companies are putting IT under the finance chief's remit. Executive recruiter Harvey Nash, for example, surveyed 300 CIOs in the UK last year and found that 30% reported to the CFO, up from 20% three years earlier. This suggests "a trend, not a blip," the recruiter concluded.
Bringing finance's discipline to IT is generally considered a good thing, especially with memories of wildly overoptimistic technology spending in the late 1990s still fresh in CFOs' minds. But greater discipline goes hand in hand with accountability, so finance chiefs need to develop a sharp eye for the early warning signs of a doomed IT project. Their jobs may depend on it, as some CFOs have learned recently.