Global Study: The Super-Collaborative C-Suite

There’s no room for organizational silos in today’s competitive and challenging business environment. 

According to the business leaders we talked to, a collaborative relationship between IT, HR, and finance—a  “golden triangle”—is critical to modern business survival.

What that CIO-CHRO-CFO collaboration looks like in the coming year and beyond will depend on the strength of a company’s communication, data integration, and lessons learned from the past two years.   

The CHRO Role Is Evolving

Dr. John Boudreau, professor emeritus and senior research scientist, Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California, says COVID-19 has accelerated changes in working relationships. 

“That evolution has probably accelerated changes that would have taken five to 10 years into just two years,” he says. “Those effects have been profound and will continue. One of the fundamental arenas for that change will be in HR’s relationship with other disciplines such as finance, operations, IT, and facilities.”

It’s encouraging, then, that our global survey “Closing the Acceleration Gap: Toward Sustainable Digital Transformation” shows that HR leaders are more likely than other business leaders to have recognized the gap between where their business is and where it needs to be to compete (56%)—and to lead the work required to close that gap.

One strategy will be closer collaboration with IT leaders—particularly given that more than 4 in 10 CHROs say they are not confident in their teams’ ability to elevate human performance through tech. That’s an area where CIOs can step in to help the HR function.

CIOs Seek Finance Support

In return, CIOs will need greater support from CHROs with workforce planning, as they seek to build digital-ready firms in which technologies and systems are accessible and valuable to all employees. 

For 52% of IT leaders, improved cybersecurity compliance and/or privacy and protection is a priority investment area. But legacy infrastructure often hinders tech adoption. That’s why IT leaders cite technology to augment their team’s capacity as a top investment priority to meet evolving business needs. 

To make that happen, they will need to forge a stronger partnership with their peers in finance. This partnership will allow companies to identify how such investment might affect the integrity of data—and the repercussions for strategic growth.  

The CFO Needs Constant Data

As businesses continue to transform for the digital age, the importance of this CFO-CIO relationship shouldn’t be underestimated. Closer collaboration is now essential to quickly connect operational, people, and financial data.

But data silos are thwarting CFOs’ ambitions. In our research, just 12% of CFOs say that data is fully accessible to those who need it within their business and 43% say that data is somewhat or completely siloed.

Bottom line, companies that can create and maintain the IT, HR, and finance collaboration will find it a key differentiator in the years ahead.

Download the full report “Closing the Acceleration Gap: Toward Sustainable Digital Transformation” for more findings from the office of the CFO, CIO, and CHRO.