Technology, Operations and Shared Services functions combine under common leadership

CFOs are no longer managing the “rear view mirror” of business and have an important input on technology decisions. The boundaries between technology, operations and shared services are blurring. The concept of Global Business Services, which comes in and out of focus as a trend, embodies a solution to this dilemma.

Looking beyond the needs of today, some organizations have set up “Next Generation” tech labs to cut their teeth on new technologies, although this is nothing new to 2019. However, the last word should be always based on strategic outcomes and overall business priorities with a healthy balanced view on the best recipe and blend of process, people, data and technology. The CIO of the future may very well see their key objectives becoming much less about creating or delivering technological systems, and much more about ensuring the business outcomes through the application of technology, change and data across all business processes, maximising the value from the company’s people assets as well as their technology and data ones.