Here’s a telling statistic: 70% of companies are increasing their IT budgets as a percentage of revenue. Yet only 20% of CFOs are satisfied with the business value those investments deliver.
This disconnect reveals one of the most pressing challenges facing organizations today: how to invest in technology that moves the business forward, not just keeps the lights on.
According to a recent survey of 3,000 CIOs and CFOs by Rimini Street in partnership with Censuswide, the answer lies in an unlikely partnership. These two traditionally separate roles are converging, sharing accountability for technology decisions in ways that would have seemed unusual a few years ago.
This shift isn’t cosmetic. It’s strategic. And it’s reshaping how companies approach everything from cloud migration to AI adoption. Let’s explore it.
Who Calls the Shots on Technology Investment?
The traditional model was simple: CIOs owned technology decisions, and CFOs funded them. That model is dead.
Today, 72% of CFOs say they lead in setting tech investment budgets. More revealing, 41% of CIOs report that their CFO counterparts are now influencing, or outright making, the underlying technology decisions themselves.
This isn’t about CFOs overstepping, but about necessity.
CIOs still carry the mandate to modernize tech ecosystems and drive technical agility. They ask the operation questions:
- “Which platforms will scale?”
- “How do we migrate safely?”
- “What integrations do we need?”
But CFOs bring a complementary and critical lens. They ensure that every element of an IT investment strategy ties back to measurable business outcomes. Their questions are different:
- “Are we minimizing waste from legacy systems?”
- “Does this spending support growth?”
- “What’s the ROI timeline?”
The challenge is that these two leaders often speak different languages. The Rimini Street survey found that 85% of CFOs believe their CIO needs to be more business-savvy to communicate effectively. Meanwhile, 86% of CIOs say their CFO needs to be more tech-savvy.
Despite this friction, the partnership is working. Organizations where CIOs and CFOs define shared metrics and govern technology investments together are outperforming those that don’t.
The key insight is: neither role can succeed in isolation anymore.
CIO Priorities: Innovation, Agility, and the Push Toward Emerging Tech
CIOs today are operating under intense pressure. They’re expected to scale infrastructure across the business and modernize legacy systems. They must also ensure the stability of operations.
The Rimini Street report reveals how CIOs are adopting emerging technologies.
Between 40% and 50% already have active investments in areas like AI, machine learning, and predictive analytics. Another 35% to 40% plan to invest this year. Only 2% to 5% have no plans at all.
But here’s what’s intriguing: CIOs aren’t chasing the latest trends. They’re being pragmatic.
When asked how they’re adopting new tech, 31% said they’re using a “supplement” strategy: adding fit-for-purpose solutions around their existing enterprise software rather than ripping everything out.
Only 27% are upgrading to their vendor’s newest platform, and 23% are replacing current systems entirely.
This reflects a broader reality.
CIOs are dealing with hybrid environments, and no one is fully on-premises, fully SaaS, or fully cloud. Fewer than 2% of surveyed CIOs said that more than 40% of their applications are on a single deployment model. The app world is messy, and CIOs are navigating it with intentionality.
| Top CIO Priorities |
| Generative AI remains the top priority. CIOs are exploring how it can support development workflows and surface insights from operational data. The “secret sauce” to AI value, according to 87% of CIOs, is clean historical data, and most organizations don’t have it yet. |
| Process automation is another central focus. CIOs are streamlining repetitive work and building frameworks that can scale without increases in headcount. |
| Modern integration architectures are also rising in importance. As companies use more platforms and cloud services, CIOs need systems that communicate seamlessly. Siloed data and disconnected workflows are productivity killers. |
These priorities converge under a single theme: CIOs are using emerging tools to build organizations that can adapt faster and create value sooner. But they need cross-functional alignment, especially from CFOs, to turn vision into outcomes.
CFO Priorities: Cost Optimization, ROI Discipline, and the Hidden Costs of Legacy Systems
While CIOs focus on innovation and future capabilities, CFOs are responsible for ensuring that every technology strengthens the business financially.
And right now, many are frustrated.
Only 20% of CFOs are “typically pleased” with the improvement technology makes to their business.
Another 26% see mixed results. 17% express that the majority of their technology investments have no connection to business objectives.
This dissatisfaction is why CFOs are getting more involved in technology decisions. They’re not stepping into the CIO’s domain out of ambition; they’re doing it out of necessity.
| Top CFO Priorities |
| The first priority is ensuring investment in technology aligns with clear business goals. When asked what they want CIOs to focus on, CFOs ranked revenue-generating technology initiatives (28%), risk management and compliance (27%), and next-gen disruptive tech (25%). |
| Another key concern is reducing the hidden costs of legacy systems. CFOs are encouraging leaders to redirect spending from maintenance to strategic development. This means finding ways to support existing systems, so budgets can shift toward innovation. |
| ROI evaluation has also expanded beyond simple financials. CFOs are now measuring value through operational resilience as well, things like reduced downtime and improved customer response times. These outcomes may not show up on a P&L immediately, but they compound over time. |
Interestingly, the technologies delivering the most value to CFOs are:
- Security technologies
- AI and analytics
- Customer-facing SaaS like CRM.
The technology delivering the least value? ERP upgrades and migrations.
The Growing Talent Crisis and Why Flexibility Matters
One challenge that’s putting pressure on both CIOs and CFOs is the exodus of IT talent.
According to the survey, 46% of CIOs report that IT staff are leaving for higher-paying jobs, and the ripple effects are significant. Companies face increased hiring and training costs, are forced to boost compensation to remaining staff, experience delayed projects, and deal with increased operational risk.
In short, when organizations lose IT talent, they pay for it one way or another.
Moreover, internal teams are often already stretched thin with ongoing operations. Hiring full-time specialists is slow, expensive, and difficult to reverse if priorities shift.
This is where flexible talent models become a strategic lever.
Investment in Technology: The Case for IT Staff Augmentation Services
As CIOs and CFOs refine their IT investment strategy, one pattern is emerging: companies need access to specialized skills without the overhead and inflexibility of traditional hiring.
IT staff augmentation services have become a practical approach for many firms navigating this challenge. It allows them to bring in expertise on demand, whether that’s for AI implementation, legacy systems modernization, automation design, or cloud integration.
And scale up or down as needs change.
This approach offers several advantages that align with CFO and CIO priorities:
| Staff Augmentation Benefits | |
| Cost transparency and predictability | Instead of absorbing salaries, benefits, onboarding costs, and turnover risk, companies pay for talent as they use it. This makes budgets more predictable and easier to align with project-level ROI expectations, which is a key concern for CFOs. |
| Speed and flexibility | Staff augmentation allows teams to move quickly when opportunities arise or when technical challenges surface. There’s no three-month hiring process. Teams can start delivering value within weeks. |
| Access to specialized skills | As emerging technologies evolve, the skills needed to install them are often niche and hard to find. Staff augmentation provides access to practitioners who have already solved similar problems elsewhere. |
Notably, 36% of CIOs are already outsourcing application support, and 34% are using managed services. The benefits reported by CIOs using outsourced support include better help with app customization, broader service options, better quality of service, and faster resolutions.
Building an IT Investment Strategy That Works
CIOs and CFOs are expected to drive both innovation and efficiency at the same time. Here’s what that looks like in practice:
- Start with alignment. CIOs and CFOs need to define shared success metrics early. What does “value” mean for a given initiative? Is it cost avoidance, revenue growth, risk reduction, or customer satisfaction? Alignment prevents misunderstandings later.
- Focus on pragmatic innovation. Don’t chase emerging tech for it own sake. Use it to supplement existing systems, solve specific problems, or unlock new capabilities. The “innovate around the edges” approach, keeping core systems stable while experimenting at the periphery, is proving effective.
- Address data readiness before scaling AI. If 94% of CIOs say their data needs cleanup, this should be a foundational priority. AI delivers value when it has quality inputs. Investing in data hygiene now pays off later.
- Reduce the cost of maintaining legacy systems. Third-party support, application management, and selective modernization can free up strategic investments.
- Build flexible talent models. Whether through staff augmentation, managed services, or partnerships, create the ability to scale up and down as priorities shift.
- Measure beyond the financials. ROI isn’t just about dollars saved or revenue generated. It includes operational resilience, speed to market, customer satisfaction, and risk mitigation.
CIOs and CFOs: Move Forward With Confidence!
The convergence of CFO and CIO roles is a structural shift. Companies that recognize this and build strong CIO/CFO partnerships are already seeing results.
If you’re evaluating how to support system modernization or process automation while maintaining cost discipline, the answer likely involves rethinking:
- How you access talent.
- How you govern technology investments.
- How your financial and technical leaders collaborate.
Staff augmentation can be part of that equation: not as a cost-cutting measure, but as a strategic enabler that gives teams the ability to move fast, the expertise to execute well, and the financial predictability to please both the CIO and CFO. Ready to explore how staff augmentation can support your IT roadmap? Schedule a call with our team.