Accountancy Age's Rachel Fielding recently interviewed a panel of experts on a webcast, asking what impact tightening financial reins will have on IT spending. Paul Druckman, chairman of M Institute, was part of the panel and here are some of his comments answering the question "What role can FDs take in IT investment decisions?"
The economic turmoil has tilted the balance and the finance director (FD) is becoming much more involved in IT investment than this time last year. Good FDs think strategically about IT rather than just through efficiencies and that has been one of the failings historically.
There is a different style of IT project evolving. People are looking for the cash implications to be less onerous on the business, but that doesn’t mean that they are shelving projects. The projects that are likely to fail are where the organisation doesn’t understand the change that is going to happen. People are starting to understand that projects impinge right across the business and you can’t just bring in external consultants to do that work in the business.
We have got to be concerned whether economic models are sustainable into the future. Therefore, when you look at the risks, they have to be at a much higher level than before and that business risk also needs to encompass the people and the longer term view of business in general and the economy as a whole.
The worry I have is that everybody just says ‘well, in 2010, things will be alright’. But will they? Will we be going back to where we were before with the same greed culture that we had?
In the 1980s, technology growth enabled us to get out of a recession. Now it is much bigger -technology is not going to enable us to get out of it. It will be one of the drivers though it’s too big a picture for one driver alone.
To read the full account of the webcast, check out Accountancy Age's Insider Business Club.
Comments