How a strong CFO-CIO partnership can help your organization.
What to know about the business relationship between CFOs and CIOs.
Positive relationships are almost always good for business. Creating mutual trust and understanding between coworkers – especially at the executive level – is crucial to making beneficial business decisions. In addition to fostering an overall sense of teamwork that can boost business morale, good partnerships between C-suite executives like CIOs and CFO can also help:
Create stronger communication policies company-wide
Communication is the key to success. Companies that have better interdepartmental communication are better prepared to handle and react to situations, as well as regularly have meetings and conversations that can help move business forward at every level of the organization. Strong relationships between members of leadership can help to set a good example for everyone in the business.
Enhance and encourage critical thinking and critique
When people are in the habit of constantly communicating and conversating honestly, there’s a freer exchange of thoughts, ideas, and constructive criticism. Communication is best when it’s open and when people can voice their thoughts, feelings, and ideas on the business in a polite and considerate but direct and honest way. This helps businesses continue to grow and innovate. This kind of close, honest communication can be helpful for leadership, but also help set the standard for authentic and honest communication business wide.
Maximize efficiency
Efficiency is built on communication. Effective processes and successful business practices rely on leadership working together and communicating openly and often. This helps to maximize efficiency by saving time on constantly having to confirm or check where someone is on a project or what the status is on something, because communication is forthcoming and proactive.
Potentially reduce cost and expenses
The role of the CIO, as information officer, is primarily everything to do with information and data – from the help desk to data migration to web developers, it usually falls under the CIO umbrella. The role of CFOs, as chief financial officers, is to manage and account for finances, supervising all projects that fall under budgeting, accounts payable, accounts receivable, and other monetary company issues, such as managing cost of goods and producing other cost savings. It makes sense, then, that working closely with the CFO can help to benefit the operational cost of other departments. It can also maximize savings when department heads communicate closely and understand what each other are working on, helping to reduce redundancies and duplicate processes.
One way to create better partnerships between CIOs and CFOs is to schedule regular meetings, as well as make sure that when working on overlapping projects there is dedicated time to discuss, strategize, and plan. Understanding each other’s personalities and priorities is key to forming better relationships – comprehending someone’s background, experience, and beliefs about business can help form the necessary understanding to work better together.
Do you feel that C-level relationships need to be healthy and communicative to be successful? Do you think partnerships between departments in an organization should be strong to help contribute to a business’s success? How do you define “good” relationships between CIO and CFO or other members of leadership?