Technology Issues for Financial Executives
January 2004

Financial Executives International (FEI) and CSC are pleased to provide the results from the sixth annual Technology Issues for Financial Executives survey. This survey of the most senior FEI member from each company is unparalleled among IT studies because it provides the senior financial officer’s perspective on technology. Among this year’s respondents, 84 percent indicated they are the senior-most financial executive in their entity. The chief financial officer's (CFO) perspective is unique in that he typically has both the technology organization reporting to him and the primary responsibility for ensuring that all expenditures are in the best interest of the shareholders.

Point of View: IT Spending
How Much Should Your Company Spend on IT?
January 2004

When faced with information technology (IT) spending decisions, the first instinct for many CFOs is to compare their spending against their peers. Presumably this helps them determine whether they are underspending or overspending their peers, and adjust their technology spending to be more in line with common practice. “Common practice” being the average spending of the group. CSC’s position — and the data validates it — is that this approach is unproductive and contributes to technology spending’s failure to meet expectations.