In today’s digital economy, the financial well-being of the enterprise is dependent on the health of the CFO-CIO relationship – and this will be amplified as the importance of digital grows. This mission-critical convergence of technology, investment strategy and risk has elevated the CFO-CIO relationship to new levels of importance. Any disconnect between the CFO and CIO will have profound consequences for the organization, and jeopardize advancement.

The CFO and CIO must work together to champion digital transformation across the enterprise. Leveraging cloud and new technology to streamline Accounts Payable can provide significant return on investment to fund additional digital transformation initiatives.

CFOs are gaining more digital DNA day by day – and partnering with CIOs to support digital transformation. A new study from EY titled “Partnering for Performance” based on a global survey of 652 CFO and financial leaders sheds new light on the evolving CFO-CIO relationship. Some 61% of CFOs report increased collaboration in the last 3 years, and 71% of CFOs have increased involvement in the IT agenda in the last 3 years.

What are the topics CFOs and CIOs see eye to eye on? They know that legacy IT and the “technical debt” of unproductive and inefficient technology can be a significant barrier to growth and profitability, and that new digital technologies, such as cloud computing and SaaS, offer opportunities to increase the bottom line and support top-line growth.

To this end, CFOs and top finance professionals are starting close to home and leading their organizations by example, exploiting technology to convert data into insights for better faster decision making, streamline and automate transactions for greater efficiency, improved throughput, reduced costs and cycle time. And streamlining accounts payable operations is often one of the best opportunities to improve ROI and boost the bottom line.

With Inspyrus’ Next-Gen AP Automation Cloud, CFOs and CIOs can realize the benefits of Invoice Automation, Dynamic Discounting and Supplier Enablement, faster and better than ever before without the need to invest in new hardware and IT resources to manage the application and associated infrastructure. Inspyrus Cloud easily and securely connects in real-time with on-premise or cloud/hosted ERP systems—even multiple ERP systems simultaneously with a single application.

Source: http://www.ey.com/gl/en/issues/managing-finance/ey-cfo-program-partnering-for-performance-the-cfo-and-cio-a-growing-collaboration