Rimini Street Releases Report on ‘IT Investment Optimization’

Rimini Street today announced the results of a survey conducted by market research firm Censuswide titled “C-suite Imperatives: Evolving IT and Enterprise Investments.” The survey, which surveyed approximately 3,000 CFOs and CIOs worldwide, tracked the relationships between key business leaders and the drivers behind technology investments and decisions.

The survey results show that as IT costs and spending continue to increase, CFOs’ influence over IT is growing. Key findings include:

CFO-CIO collaboration continues to strengthen

Eighty-six percent of CFOs and CIOs said their collaboration had strengthened. CFOs play a key role in IT investment decisions. In fact, 72 percent of survey respondents said their CFOs play a leading role in setting technology budget levels, while about 41 percent of CIO respondents said their CFOs make technology adoption decisions. Close collaboration and shared responsibility between the two groups can lead to improved business profitability, with 49 percent of CFO respondents saying a positive CFO/CIO relationship is responsible for improved business performance.

“The technology team works closely with the CFO in the early planning stages to ensure strategic alignment and make smart decisions that align with the corporate vision and business budget objectives,” said Gertrude Van Horn, Rimini Street CIO.

CIOs Focus on Finding Solutions to Rising IT Costs

CIOs are responding to rising IT costs by investing in new technologies (44%) and outsourcing application support (36%). They are investing heavily in AI to address rising IT costs. While 87% of CIOs agree that historical data is key to maximizing the value of AI projects for ERP, a whopping 94% say that data needs to be cleaned up to a large or moderate degree to be successful with AI.

Another area where CIOs are focusing their budgets is improving cost predictability. CIO respondents said outsourcing IT services can help them address the loss of IT talent and staff, and it can provide benefits such as application customization (33%), a wider range of service and support solutions (33%), improved service and support quality (32%), faster resolution (30%), and cost savings (26%).

Not all technology initiatives are satisfactory

CFOs said that upgrading or migrating ERP (23%) provides the least value. While security (28%), emerging technologies such as AI, business intelligence and data analytics (27%), and customer-facing SaaS technologies (27%) rounded out the top three technology investments that provide the most value to their businesses, upgrading or migrating ERP received the least amount of enthusiasm from the surveyed CFOs.

Only 20% of CFOs surveyed said they were satisfied with the results of their technology investments. They often experienced negative impacts such as persistent cost increases, limited future flexibility, and organizational/business disruption. Therefore, CIOs must consider both the short-term and long-term impacts of their technology strategies.

For more information about the report, hereYou can check it at .
editor@itworld.co.kr