ÑÇÖÞȺp

IT leaders want to collaborate more with CFOs, based on findings from the 2025 SAP ÑÇÖÞȺp CFO Insights report: 58% of IT leaders want to establish more regular cross-functional meetings with C-level colleagues. This comes at a critical time for collaboration as finance leaders seek opportunities to turn AI investment into revenue. However, only 9% of CFOs think growth leadership should be shared across the C-suite.

As finance leaders lean into AI for automation, with over half (57%) saying general finance tasks are already highly automated by AI, increased collaboration is critical for mutual understanding and growth. When working in tandem, IT and finance leaders can prioritize IT initiatives to substantiate growth and create higher organizational impact.

This year¡¯s CFO Insights report draws on data from a survey of 350 finance leaders, 115 IT leaders, and 115 HR leaders across eight countries, exploring the unique challenges of 2025 and actions that the C-suite can take to help an organization grow.

These are some of the key themes from the IT leader edition of the report:

IT leaders need financial investment to establish trust in cybersecurity and risk prevention.

• Nearly half (43%) of IT leaders rank phishing and social engineering attacks as top-three vulnerabilities for their business, noting that human elements are often the biggest weaknesses.
• To combat risk and increase confidence in IT projects, technology chiefs want finance to prioritize cybersecurity in financial planning (57%) and increase budgets for security measures (51%).
• Fifty-nine percent of finance leaders plan to increase their cybersecurity budget to respond to growing threats. However, only 20% plan to enhance collaboration with the IT department to drive this forward. 

Beyond budgets, IT heads also seek strategic alignment and long-term partnership from their finance counterparts.

• IT chiefs say they value support from their CFOs, particularly on digital transformation (54%) and establishing metrics to evaluate the return on investment and performance of IT initiatives (43%).
• Technology leaders also want to cooperate on shared goals with finance leaders in expense management and reduction (52%), investment in tools and technology (50%), and budgeting and financial planning (39%).

In return, CFOs want to actualize growth potential in AI investments.

• Only one in five IT leaders (21%) believe AI has been effective in increasing revenue generation.
• Despite this, 58% of finance leaders say one of their biggest actions for driving growth in 2025 is investing in AI.
• While AI has not yet emerged as a major revenue driver, IT leaders can work with CFOs to actualize the technology's transformative potential.

Although they share ambitions, barriers between finance and IT stifle meaningful collaboration.

• IT chiefs cite conflicting departmental priorities (57%) and lack of clear roles and responsibilities (49%) as barriers to effective cooperation across the C-suite.
• Additional sticking points for IT leaders include lack of time for regular meetings and insufficient data sharing (47% each), as well as tech limitations (42%).
• IT leaders want to break these barriers with regular cross-functional meetings (58%), flexible budgets for collaborative projects (56%), and integrated technology platforms (54%).

For more information, including specific actions that IT leaders can take to accelerate growth, download the IT leader edition of the 2025 SAP ÑÇÖÞȺp CFO Insights report.

Methodology: SAP ÑÇÖÞȺp surveyed 350 CFOs and senior finance leaders, 115 HR leaders, and 115 IT leaders for its latest CFO Insights report. The research, conducted in December 2024 and January 2025, covered Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Japan, Mexico, the UK, and the U.S. The sectors in the survey ranged from finance to technology, healthcare, utilities, consumer, and industrial.