Our People Are Safer than Our Systems, Say CFOs

Technology is more vulnerable than intellectual capital in most companies, according to a new study of 1,400 CFOs by Robert Half.

The chief financial officers were asked: “In which of the following areas do you feel your company is most vulnerable?” The most common answer was disaster preparedness/recovery, cited by 37 percent of respondents. This was followed by security of information systems (24 percent); protection of intellectual capital (11 percent); detection of accounting fraud (10 percent); and theft (3 percent).

Not surprisingly, given this concern about information systems, 28 percent of the CFOs say that technology enhancement will be their biggest investment this year, while only 9 percent say that “additional personnel” will be their number one expenditure.