5 Digital-Strategy Questions CFOs Must Answer to Be Effective – Gartner
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August 12, 2021
Contributor: Jackie Wiles
For CFOs to be effective enablers of digital strategy, they must stay true to their organization’s goals and ambitions. Continually asking these five basic questions can help.
Pressure is on CFOs to prioritize and fund digital initiatives as organizations reconfigure business and operating models and adapt to new, often-hybrid working environments. But to make good digital decisions, you need a clear view of what the digital strategy is and does — and that north star can easily get lost amid the furious, often-competing demands for resources.
“To guard against misplaced digital spend and poor returns on investment later, it’s wise for CFOs to dissect their organization’s digital strategy — and keep verifying it continually,” says Randeep Rathindran, VP, Gartner.
As the pandemic has sped up digital transformation, making it harder to keep track of the expected goals and outcomes of digital strategy, it’s also created an ideal time for CFOs to ask these five questions that together ensure you’re directing resources to those initiatives most likely to enable the enterprise’s ambitions.
Download now: The CFO Guide to Digital Strategy
Digitalization generally describes the use of digital technologies to upgrade organizational processes, improve interactions between people, organizations and things, or make new business models possible. But every organization has different goals and ambitions, and as CFO, you can’t prioritize investment choices without first knowing the tangible outcomes that your organization expects from its digital strategy.
In short, what is the organization trying to achieve, and how will it accomplish those goals?
The answer will help you gauge the climate for digital investments and prioritize initiatives accordingly. A 2020 Gartner survey found that 69% of boards of directors were responding to the impact of COVID-19 by accelerating their digital business initiatives and strategies. It also showed boards expecting a 6.9% increase in IT/technology budgets. CFOs need to understand how to deploy that spend to drive enterprisewide digital strategies and business outcomes.
“Digital” isn’t a monolithic strategy, and it’s critical to distinguish between objectives:
In strategy discussions and when considering funding requests, CFOs play an important role in verifying whether initiatives support the stated strategy, imposing appropriate metrics and hurdles to trigger or deny spend, and later tracking the success and progress of funded initiatives.
The digital strategy of most organizations calls for a combination of transformation- and optimization-oriented outcomes, but that mix depends entirely on your objectives. Gartner research shows that in 2020, the average organization dedicated 37% of all spend on digital initiatives to optimization, 29% to transformation and 35% to enablement that serves both goals. As CFO, it is your responsibility to appropriately deploy digital funding to drive the strategy.
In times of transition, for example, you might dedicate more resources to bold, transformative strategic moves, which carry higher risk — and require risk appetite from senior leadership. You can capture more significant near-term gains from digital optimization, which carries less risk but only enables the existing business model and thus isn’t designed to generate new revenue streams.
Your digital strategy also determines whether the enterprise budget for digital initiatives is growing — and if and how resource priorities should shift between optimization and transformation. Dynamically shifting funds between initiatives is a hallmark of an effective digital CFO.
Digital business optimization targets performance improvements, such as increased revenue and operating margins, improved employee and customer experience and greater asset utilization.
CFOs must be able to calibrate the right balance of outcomes and ensure that all digital spend contributes to these desired outcomes. One way to do that is to focus resources on areas of differentiation for the business. Differentiators can relate to intangibles, such as unique intellectual property, or tangible assets, such as proprietary technologies. The CFO’s role is to ensure that investment and funding for these and other types of high-value initiatives aren’t choked out by activities that don’t contribute to strategic digital outcomes.
It’s also important to determine the key performance indicators (KPIs) that clearly track both digital progress and the expected business and financial outcomes.
Digital business transformation is a radical shift — it pushes an enterprise beyond its current business model — so it is most appropriate when a business unit’s or organization’s operating environment is changing. At its most extreme, digital business transformation moves enterprises into entirely new industries.
Your role is to identify the highest-priority opportunities for digital business transformation based on which transformation options have the highest potential to create revenue and support strong future revenue growth.
Digitally native companies, which have built their products and models from the ground up, offer some lessons here:
Be a part of the most important gathering of CFOs to explore potential finance tech providers and get actionable insights to prioritize technology innovation.
Recommended resources for Gartner clients*:
The CFO’s Guide to Enterprise Digital Strategy
The CFO’s Guide to Performance-Managing Enterprise Digital Investments
The CFOs’ Guide to Investment Culture
Current Growth Investment Governance Practices Hurt Returns
*Note that some documents may not be available to all Gartner clients.
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This article was autogenerated from a news feed from CDO TIMES selected high quality news and research sources. There was no editorial review conducted beyond that by CDO TIMES staff. Need help with any of the topics in our articles? Schedule your free CDO TIMES Tech Navigator call today to stay ahead of the curve and gain insider advantages to propel your business!
or call
August 12, 2021
Contributor: Jackie Wiles
For CFOs to be effective enablers of digital strategy, they must stay true to their organization’s goals and ambitions. Continually asking these five basic questions can help.
Pressure is on CFOs to prioritize and fund digital initiatives as organizations reconfigure business and operating models and adapt to new, often-hybrid working environments. But to make good digital decisions, you need a clear view of what the digital strategy is and does — and that north star can easily get lost amid the furious, often-competing demands for resources.
“To guard against misplaced digital spend and poor returns on investment later, it’s wise for CFOs to dissect their organization’s digital strategy — and keep verifying it continually,” says Randeep Rathindran, VP, Gartner.
As the pandemic has sped up digital transformation, making it harder to keep track of the expected goals and outcomes of digital strategy, it’s also created an ideal time for CFOs to ask these five questions that together ensure you’re directing resources to those initiatives most likely to enable the enterprise’s ambitions.
Download now: The CFO Guide to Digital Strategy
Digitalization generally describes the use of digital technologies to upgrade organizational processes, improve interactions between people, organizations and things, or make new business models possible. But every organization has different goals and ambitions, and as CFO, you can’t prioritize investment choices without first knowing the tangible outcomes that your organization expects from its digital strategy.
In short, what is the organization trying to achieve, and how will it accomplish those goals?
The answer will help you gauge the climate for digital investments and prioritize initiatives accordingly. A 2020 Gartner survey found that 69% of boards of directors were responding to the impact of COVID-19 by accelerating their digital business initiatives and strategies. It also showed boards expecting a 6.9% increase in IT/technology budgets. CFOs need to understand how to deploy that spend to drive enterprisewide digital strategies and business outcomes.
“Digital” isn’t a monolithic strategy, and it’s critical to distinguish between objectives:
In strategy discussions and when considering funding requests, CFOs play an important role in verifying whether initiatives support the stated strategy, imposing appropriate metrics and hurdles to trigger or deny spend, and later tracking the success and progress of funded initiatives.
The digital strategy of most organizations calls for a combination of transformation- and optimization-oriented outcomes, but that mix depends entirely on your objectives. Gartner research shows that in 2020, the average organization dedicated 37% of all spend on digital initiatives to optimization, 29% to transformation and 35% to enablement that serves both goals. As CFO, it is your responsibility to appropriately deploy digital funding to drive the strategy.
In times of transition, for example, you might dedicate more resources to bold, transformative strategic moves, which carry higher risk — and require risk appetite from senior leadership. You can capture more significant near-term gains from digital optimization, which carries less risk but only enables the existing business model and thus isn’t designed to generate new revenue streams.
Your digital strategy also determines whether the enterprise budget for digital initiatives is growing — and if and how resource priorities should shift between optimization and transformation. Dynamically shifting funds between initiatives is a hallmark of an effective digital CFO.
Digital business optimization targets performance improvements, such as increased revenue and operating margins, improved employee and customer experience and greater asset utilization.
CFOs must be able to calibrate the right balance of outcomes and ensure that all digital spend contributes to these desired outcomes. One way to do that is to focus resources on areas of differentiation for the business. Differentiators can relate to intangibles, such as unique intellectual property, or tangible assets, such as proprietary technologies. The CFO’s role is to ensure that investment and funding for these and other types of high-value initiatives aren’t choked out by activities that don’t contribute to strategic digital outcomes.
It’s also important to determine the key performance indicators (KPIs) that clearly track both digital progress and the expected business and financial outcomes.
Digital business transformation is a radical shift — it pushes an enterprise beyond its current business model — so it is most appropriate when a business unit’s or organization’s operating environment is changing. At its most extreme, digital business transformation moves enterprises into entirely new industries.
Your role is to identify the highest-priority opportunities for digital business transformation based on which transformation options have the highest potential to create revenue and support strong future revenue growth.
Digitally native companies, which have built their products and models from the ground up, offer some lessons here:
Be a part of the most important gathering of CFOs to explore potential finance tech providers and get actionable insights to prioritize technology innovation.
Recommended resources for Gartner clients*:
The CFO’s Guide to Enterprise Digital Strategy
The CFO’s Guide to Performance-Managing Enterprise Digital Investments
The CFOs’ Guide to Investment Culture
Current Growth Investment Governance Practices Hurt Returns
*Note that some documents may not be available to all Gartner clients.
By clicking the "Continue" button, you are agreeing to the Gartner Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Please provide the consent below
I have read, understood and accepted Gartner Separate Consent Letter , whereby I agree (1) to provide Gartner with my personal information, and understand that information will be transferred outside of mainland China and processed by Gartner group companies and other legitimate processing parties and (2) to be contacted by Gartner group companies via internet, mobile/telephone and email, for the purposes of sales, marketing and research.
By clicking the "Subscribe" button, you are agreeing to the Gartner Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
©2024 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
©2024 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Clients receive 24/7 access to proven management and technology research, expert advice, benchmarks, diagnostics and more. Fill out the form to connect with a representative and learn more.
8 a.m. – 7 p.m. ET
8 a.m. – 5 p.m. GMT
Monday through Friday
Please provide the consent below
I have read, understood and accepted Gartner Separate Consent Letter , whereby I agree (1) to provide Gartner with my personal information, and understand that information will be transferred outside of mainland China and processed by Gartner group companies and other legitimate processing parties and (2) to be contacted by Gartner group companies via internet, mobile/telephone and email, for the purposes of sales, marketing and research.
By clicking the "Submit" button, you are agreeing to the Gartner Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
By clicking the "" button, you are agreeing to the Gartner Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
This article was autogenerated from a news feed from CDO TIMES selected high quality news and research sources. There was no editorial review conducted beyond that by CDO TIMES staff. Need help with any of the topics in our articles? Schedule your free CDO TIMES Tech Navigator call today to stay ahead of the curve and gain insider advantages to propel your business!
