Australia's leading CFOs have their say on IT, security and governance
The Chief Financial Officer (CFO) is often the biggest customer of an IT department. So
understanding what drives them – and what drives them nuts – can be critical to a CIOs
success, and business growth as a whole.
Macquarie Telecom and MIS Magazine brought together the purse-string holders from some
of Australia's leading businesses to discuss what they really thought about IT security,
governance and ROI issues.
Here's what the CFO's from companies including Colliers International, ORIX Australia and Travelex
had to say.
On corporate governance and security
Opinions ranged on the issue of corporate governance and security, depending on the CFO's
industry and levels of compliance they are exposed to.
Top of mind, of course, is the cost to the business.
Clinton Gould of Travelex Australia, argued that it's all very well to suggest backing
up every 10 minutes, but if it costs $50 million then you will never get corporate
sign-off.
To sole this, Andrew Vaughan, ORIX Australia, said that audit committees are now more
involved in determining appropriate levels of disaster recovery.
Other comments included:
- Sean Unwin, Colliers International: The IT department may not get exposure to the
rigorous compliance environment, making it difficult to define what system controls are
required.
- John Barbeler, City of Sydney: Whenever we have a major system rollout, our internal
audit function goes through project and delivery plans and then we go to an audit
committee.
- Tom Taylor, Credit Union Services Corporation Australia: We run an annual application
risk assessment to understand what is happening in the system. That's a way of bringing
business into it – generally speaking, it becomes more of a business issue than an IT
issue specifically.
On the cost of IT and ROI
Keeping costs down is the primary interest of these CFOs, but there appeared to be an
element of cynicism about managing IT spend:
- Jim Orlando, Powertel: The underlying costs are going down and down. What drives
costs up is bad planning.
- Chris Warr, Compass Group: The best way to keep costs down is not to hire developers.
The business users are the ones that go out – because they know what they need – to source
the technology.
- Sean Unwin, Colliers International: You can't depend on IT vendors to tell you what
it is you need – you've actually got to know yourself what you want. And then you've got
to be able to express that need to IT and to IT suppliers.
In terms of ROI, Andrew Vaughan and Sharon Markulin from Dick Smith Electronics both
agreed that measuring the benefit of new IT contracts is a complex and difficult process –
even when you can see that the project will reap rewards.
Read the full article from MIS Magazine
Panellists
- Aidan Tudehope, Chief Operating Officer, Macquarie Telecom
-
Sean Unwin, National Finance Director, Colliers International
-
Jim Orlando, CFO, Powertel
-
Clinton Gould, Finance Director of Travelex Australia
-
Sharon Markulin, Commercial Manager, Dick Smith Electronics
- Andrew Vaughan, Director
Finance & Administration, ORIX Australia
-
John Wise, CFO, Savills Australia
-
John Barbeler, Director of Corporate Services, City of Sydney
-
Bill Carter, Finance Manager, City of Sydney
-
Tom Taylor, CFO, Credit Union Services Corporation Australia
-
Chris Warr, CFO Asia Pacific, Compass Group (Australia)
Moderator:
- Mark Jones, AFR IT editor and managing editor of MIS Australia
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