IT Managed by Accountants

An accountant has a unique set of skills. As an individual the accountant may or may not have the skills to manage, or an undestanding of IT, or good business sense.

IT managed by the business objectives and business requirements of the enterprise is a whole other issue. Poor communications between IT and other business units often leads to the belief IT is being managed by accountants. This is especially true when IT is pushing for technology without being able to link it to specific business objectives.

Taking your question literally, in my experience, yes. In the majority of companies that I have worked for, the IT manager has reported directly to the head accountant. This accountant is usually known as the VP of finance, controller, whatever. Sometimes they are good managers who may or may not be technically savvy (more often not). I think this is due to IT's past history as "data processing" which was usually a back office function of the financial department. I have always worked for small to midsize companies who are usually behind the curve in implementing their IT assets in any strategic manner. So, my current boss? Corporate Controller.

My company has just changed directives so that IT now report to the CFO. Now it seems that focus has been shifted from making manufacturing processes and data process more efficient, to making more financial reporting (which I agree with partly as they really need to get a grip on budget here), and making the accountants life easier. It also seems that capital spending has been decreased for our department.

We all have to pay homage to the accountants, as we all have to do the best job we can within our budgets. Money is the goal of all corporations.

Oddly enough, as my last company's CFO was also the COO, we gave a lot of preferential treatment tothe accounting department - at least in that office.

"Why did the IT department purchase this? We could have gotten an Acer at CompUSA for 300$! This is ridiculous how much we wasted on Cisco when I can buy a used Intel hub at the main auction for 5$!!!! etc. ad nauseum.....

keeps me on my toes though. :)

hehehee

While IT may not be directly managed by the accountants, the fact that the accountants control the purse strings and have an impact on priorities makes them the defacto managers.

As an example, Y2K wouldn't have been as much of a problem if the accountants had been willing the extra on making years four digits way back when they were single digits due to card size limits...

Since the CIO became a recognized officer position, the MIS Director has not been accountable to the Head Accountant (ie) CFO

However, there have been articles published over the last 2yrs that suggest the CIO must have an accountant frame of mind. Regardless of this, Accountants don't manage IT. The Balance Sheet, Income Statement, and CIO manage IT.

Right, to be frank. Being recently appointed as Group IT Manager, one would think I would be reporting to the Board. It does however not appear to be the case. Instead I'm reporting to the Financial Director. While on paper this seems good enough, I've discovered that 1. IT had no previous strategy, 2. The current infrastructure (using the term broadly) has been implemented to ease the running of the financial side of the company. This leads me to believe that I will not get any support (or funding for that matter) in my attempts to align IT with the business and streamlining business processes through technology. The long and the short of it in my eyes are - IT and Finance should work hand in hand, BUT should also have seperate channels when it comes to reporting.