We often don’t think about the number of non-profits headquartered in Atlanta, but there are quite a few. The list includes CARE, American Cancer Society, Arthritis Foundation, and Hands on Network among many others I’m sure.
Today I noticed an interesting job posting from Habitat for Humanity. The job, for a Vice President and Chief Information Officer, is based in Atlanta. This is a great opportunity for all those folks who are looking for jobs such as the EarthLinkers who were recently shown the door. But one thing disturbs me about the position. This position reports to the CFO.
The job of the CFO is often put at controlling and reducing costs. Most technology initiatives take a period of time to payoff that is longer than the current quarter. Therefore, I’ve often seen non-tech savvy CFOs curtailing helpful initiatives for the sake of cost reduction today. I’ve seen this play out to disastrous ends for a number of companies. Fortunately, startups are usually never hobbled by such issues since the whole organizations goal is to create something new. But the startup still has to face this issue when you sell into an organization with just this structure.
What should you do? Obviously if the finance people are in your meetings you need to spend some time on the cost savings that your product/service will provide. But just like in a technology demo, be prepared to have your proposed cost savings challenged by the finance people in the room. I’ve seen this done for no reason other than to drill the presenter and show off to colleagues. Your best bet is to be as nice as possible and try and explain why you think they’ll save money. There are so many permutations to how accounting can be done within a company that there is no way you’ll win an argument during a meeting. Your best hope is that your meeting champion comes to your aid and shuts down any nay sayers.