The survey of more than 200 CFOs, taken during August 2025, showed that 56% of CFOs rank achieving enterprise-wide cost optimization targets in their top five. Gartner CFO survey.
The easiest way to show the value of IT is to show how it means spending less money. There’s occasional moments where “ROI” is achieved by existential dread - the tech industry is going to Blockbuster you, etc. But those are largely made up, at the least, way overblown. More importantly, if you can be transformative and be cheaper, you win.
This puts AI on shaky grounds at the moment. When are those savings going to kick in?
Only 36% of CFOs express confidence in their ability to drive enterprise AI impact, despite increasing investments in AI across corporate functions. This presents a significant risk to future financial performance. Similarly, just 44% of CFOs feel confident about accelerating the use of AI in finance, and only 42% are confident in their ability to hire and retain digital talent for finance roles.
And, of course, the desire to grow by spending less trickles down. From another survey:
Cost-cutting is 52% of CIOs' most important outcome for 2026, and they believe AI will help them achieve this.
Selling directly to “the business” is a good way around this. When you go around IT, you’re going around the cost governance that centralized IT puts in place. You often buy a bunch of stuff in your business budget. Then, when you tire of paying for and managing it, you shift it over to IT. “Not my mistake, but now my problem.”
This breeds “legacy IT” too. The business moves on to chasing the next shadows and IT is left to maintain the shadows now in the light: “keeping the lights on.”
This is, I suppose, neither good, nor bad. It just is.
And, really, are you different in your personal life?
Your CFO side wants to spend as little as possible. Or put another way if you don’t fancy thinking of yourself as “cheap,” you want to make sure you didn’t get ripped off with a high price.
And, yet, “the business” side of you wants nice, helpful things that make living better. The price and future costs of it seem limiting and a bummer.
Related: shut down the old shit.