Like many tech CFOs, Karen Walker's task as a strategic partner to the CEO and corporate functions is to pay close attention to the current value of the technology in the company and whether it's still relevant in an age of constant advancements. “With some of the newer technologies like generative AI, you have to be excited to see what's coming,” says Walker, CFO of Sysdig, a privately held provider of real-time cloud security.
Chief Financial Officer Bob Feller is also keeping an eye on new technology products. But he's more interested in reducing the number of tools used internally at Auvik Networks, a cloud-based IT management company with 300 employees in five countries. “When I became CFO a year and a half ago, we had over 250 tools here. Employees want the coolest technology, but they don't really think about how the applications are integrated.” [into] “Finance is the fountainhead of truth,” says Feller. Tasked with thinking deeply about internal IT applications and management, and the market fit of their technologies and services, finance leaders like Feller and Walker are constantly thinking about finance and the enterprise technology stack.
To learn how tech-savvy CFOs are selecting and implementing technology to their organizations' advantage, Strategic CFO 360 We asked (or prompted) eight of them about managing their IT budgets, what products interest them, and the tightrope walk they walk when it comes to prioritizing technology investments across their organizations. Here are some of their key responses:
(Comments have been edited for brevity and clarity.)
How would you describe the overall state of technology spending?
“The macro environment has led to increased scrutiny of technology spending and a big difference between 'must-have' and 'nice-to-have' applications. This often favors large vendors offering mission-critical services and smaller vendors offering demonstrable ROI. Niche vendors in the 'nice-to-have' category tend to be at risk. Our recent technology decisions reflect this theme.”
—David Jolley, CFO of Domo, a publicly traded business intelligence and management platform
How do you view your role as the manager of business applications and spend?
“My goal is to get information to the people who need it now. We have information, we have data, we just don’t know where it is. On the other side of that, when you receive or send an email and you need to find it later, you can just type the person’s name in the search box and it will pop up. But if you’re trying to find a quote from an email you got from your CFO seven years ago and you’ve forgotten the person’s name, you need help. … This is what we’re trying to come up with to provide value to our internal and external stakeholders. Maybe some form of generative AI could be the answer.”
—Ken Stillwell, CFO of Pega, a publicly traded company that provides a workflow automation and AI-driven decision-making platform
“My job is to evaluate ways to improve the efficiency and speed of our financial reporting and forecasting cycles, freeing up my team from the mundane transactional tasks so they can strategically align with the rest of the business.”
—Karen Walker, Sysdig
Tell us about some of the technology you have recently implemented to improve the efficiency of accounting, finance and other functions.
“Our technology spend has three key focus areas: organization, efficiency and enablement. To achieve this, we use one of our proprietary technologies, Process Fabric, an employee productivity tool that oversees hundreds of independent business applications and provides rapid cross-app visibility. We give employees a single portal where they can interact with multiple apps, providing them with a more efficient way to organize and complete work tasks.”
—Ken Stillwell, Pega
“The finance department uses technologies from BlackLine, Workiva, and Alteryx to eliminate, optimize, and reduce workload. These tools help us reduce errors, perform reconciliations, and learn as we go. We've just started using BlackLine for automation, but it's been thoroughly tested for data accuracy and eliminating repetition. We also use AuditBoard, a platform that helps manage audit risk and compliance. It connects accountants with external auditors, allowing us to run more efficient and cost-effective audits. The tool tracks matters that have been resolved or are still open. Finally, we use Copilot and ChatGPT on GitHub for writing software code and creating content.”
—Paul Rouse, CFO, Thryv Holdings, a publicly traded company that provides marketing and customer communications software for small and medium-sized businesses
“We just started using Spiff, an incentive compensation management software that Salesforce acquired (in February 2024). This tool will improve the efficiency of our commission structure. Another new tool we've invested in is ObserveAI, an AI-powered automation and conversation intelligence tool that listens to customer calls and answers questions effectively. We also recently implemented HubSpot as our lead generation CRM system and are integrating it with Salesforce CRM to provide leads to our sales reps.”
—Ken Talanian, CFO of virtual learning technology company Skillable
What new technologies are you interested in investing in for the future?
“We are a large Microsoft 365 shop and are trying out Copilot. We have about 100 employees using Copilot. [in] “It works with everything from Microsoft Outlook to Word to Teams. I personally use it to record and transcribe conversations like these because it summarizes key takeaways and action items. I also use it for weekly meetings to ensure action items are circulated to the right people and ensure alignment.”
—Jim Caci, CFO of AvePoint, a publicly traded vendor of SaaS solutions for Microsoft 365 customers
“There's one subsector in technology that's getting budget approval, and that's AI. Who isn't talking about AI? Companies are spending money to be 'AI-ready' – integrating, cleansing and formatting data so that it can take advantage of AI when the right application is developed. The use cases are still in their infancy, and the AI solutions for finance that I've proposed so far aren't very compelling – there's no solid, demonstrable ROI. But it feels like we're still in the very early stages of developing strong AI use cases.”
—David Jolly, Domo
“We're moving away from a home-grown platform and starting to use third-party solutions through Salesforce. One of the areas we're focusing on as we scale over the next five years is our quote-to-cash engine and lifecycle. This requires building a more seamless user experience, speeding up workflows and improving invoice processing on the receipts application side, matching receipts to outstanding invoices and the right accounts.”
—Adam Ante, CFO of Paycor, a publicly traded talent management platform
Like any CFO, I'm thinking about how to use AI to improve efficiency. I like the opportunity to learn our own data with a lab-based approach. A great example of this is “prompt engineering,” where we design inputs for AI tools. In an ideal world, instead of asking the head of FP&A and waiting an hour or two, I could just ask the tool what our revenue in Europe is going to be this quarter and get that analysis in a second.”
—Ken Talanian, Skillable
With every function, department and business unit asking for the “new” and budgets limited, how do you balance the competing priorities of the business for new technology?
“This is the hardest part: everyone needs and wants more. I'm a big fan of technology, but I take a pragmatic approach because some things don't need to be cutting edge. Depending on the tool, I ask if it's a strategic imperative, supports your top-line initiatives, increases productivity from a marketing perspective, removes a bottleneck or solves a major internal operational challenge. After the discussion, I ask if you can wait a quarter or a year to invest. If the answer is yes, then you probably should.”
—Adam Ante, Paykol
“My decision depends on whether the investment is mission-critical and has a clear, demonstrable ROI. If so, it's much easier to find a way to pay for the technology. If it's not mission-critical and the ROI is speculative, then like most companies, we eliminate or reduce our technology spend.”
—David Jolly, Domo
“I've done this many times, [become] It's pretty ruthless. For example, every software vendor is touting AI. But the only people making money from AI are hardware manufacturers like Nvidia. Meanwhile, software companies are losing money because their CFOs don't want to spend money until they know what they're getting. I say, 'Show me a clear ROI.'”
—Bob Feller, Orbic Networks
