When trying to secure investment for strategic business HR software, getting the CTO’s buy-in is one of your most critical tasks. They have enormous decision-making sway here because the costs of getting new technology wrong can be astronomical.
We've previously talked about the importance of getting the CTO to sign the technology off in our article on how to get your CFO to invest in HR software. Here, we dig a little deeper.
If your technology lets you down and cannot keep your company and customers safe, it impacts everyone. Especially in the case of HR and payroll software, which handles swathes of highly sensitive data.
The wrong software can hurt revenue, increase risk, erode employee and customer trust, open legal liabilities, incur fines, and damage your reputation. And there’s the tactical and strategic lost opportunity costs of not choosing the right software.
Unfortunately, as Ciphr’s CTO Andrew Stevens puts it, “technology projects often overpromise and underdeliver”. For instance, PwC reviewed more than 10,000 projects in 200 companies across 30 countries and found that only 2.5% of organisations had fully completed the projects they initiated.
Meanwhile, a McKinsey-Oxford study found that 17% of technology projects go so badly that they threaten the very existence of the company. And in the US, software quality issues cost businesses $2.41 trillion in 2022 – nearly double the budget deficit.
It’s your CTO’s job to analyse investment proposals with these scenarios in mind. They’ll typically have four major priorities:
- Security
- Certainty
- Integrations
- Usability
Let’s look at those.
In this article:
- Security
- Certainty
- Integrations
- Usability
- Building a strong business case for winning the CTO’s approval
1. Security
Security is the CTO’s biggest concern. Will this technology keep your organisation and customers safe? Will the system help you improve compliance and protect your own data?
That’s true not only when you’re up-and-running but also right from the get-go, when you’re transferring data from the old HR and payroll system to the new one. The CTO’s job is to explore security from every possible angle, to avoid the potentially huge consequences if something goes wrong.
The specific concerns will depend on your organisation, so bring your CTO into the process early to understand their needs. Like the CFO, don’t doorstop them with a full business case. Find out early what they’ll want to know from vendors, so you can incorporate their input into the selection and purchase process.
For more information on building a compelling business case, see our article on how to get your CEO to invest in HR software.
That said, the CTO will likely expect vendors to tick some common security boxes:
- ISO27001 certification: does the vendor meet the global standard for information security management?
- CyberEssentials or CyberEssentials Plus: is the vendor protected against common cyber attacks?
- GDPR compliant: does the system ensure you’ll be able to collect, store, manage, and protect data according to GDPR regulations?
- Regular penetration testing: does the vendor regularly check their technology for security vulnerabilities, and address any weak spots?
- Secure data back-ups: does the vendor keep your data securely backed-up, so you can retrieve information if needed (but hackers can’t)?
- Resilience and uptime guarantee: does the vendor guarantee as little business-impacting disruption as possible?
- Service and support: if there’s an issue, how fast will the vendor fix it? Will you have regular service touchpoints to ensure the relationship is going well?
- Compliance training: Does the software provider educate its own staff about compliant behaviour, with ongoing information security (infosec) training?
- Staff screening and checks: Does the software empower you to conduct your own checks on current and future employees?
Stevens points out that: “most vendors won’t give you endless detail because their exact security protocols are intellectual property. Plus, the more they openly share, the more they increase the security risk. But they should happily give you the highlevel details so you can trust they’ll keep your data, your people, and your business safe. That’s what the CTO will want to see.”
2. Certainty
Most CTOs have experienced big-ticket projects that promise one thing and deliver another. Certainty means reassuring your CTO that this project will meet the expectations you’ve set together.
Like with the CFO, involve your CTO as early as possible. Don’t doorstop them with a vendor; get their support early to scope business requirements. What’s your confidence level in the solution’s ability to do what you need it to? How certain can the business be that your proposed solution will actually solve the business problems you’ve identified?
Sometimes, when speaking to the CTO, people can fall into the trap of listing technology features. As Stevens says: “Nobody wants to buy features. They want to buy what the features help us do. What benefits will your proposed software deliver?”
Like other stakeholders, your CTO is looking for a clear problem/solution narrative. Ultimately, you want investment because you genuinely believe new HR software will solve problems and deliver benefits – benefits that outweigh the pain of change. That’s the story you need to tell, meaningfully and clearly.
Here are some tactics to help build certainty:
Be as objective as possible
It’s common to go into a buying process and already have an idea of which vendors you like. It’s also common to prioritise vendors you have a great relationship with, either through great initial chemistry calls or because you know them from a previous role.
But it’s important to introduce as much objectivity into the process as you can. Your CTO wants to see that you’ve been rigorous and impartial, and that you’ve chosen software that’s genuinely the right fit for your organisation’s needs.
To that end, it’s often helpful to develop an internal scoring system to rank vendors, to create an auditable, objective record that’s built from your original business requirements. All things being equal, it then makes a heap of sense to choose the vendors you have the best relationship with. But it shows you’re prioritising the right technology.
Record demos and flag timestamps
Executive stakeholders might never watch demos. But knowing they’re there, with time-stamped chapters and a brief analysis, helps bolster your case. And your credibility.
Stevens recommends you “prioritise personalised demos that are tailored to your specific requirements and real-world concerns, not generic sales material”. In the HR tech world, salespeople often talk a good story – and that’s fine, that’s their job. (We also have salespeople!)
But interrogate whether that’s truly a good story for you. That’s the level of scrutiny the CTO is likely to bring to the table – and they’re adept at seeing through sales bumf and getting to the real technology truths. Get there first.
“We just want the unvarnished truth. We know no system will be perfect: that’s not a deal-breaker. But we want to know what challenges we might face and workarounds we might need, so we can make a balanced decision.
Every time we introduce new tech, there’s a credibility piece for our team. If the tech doesn’t work how we say it’ll work or we haven’t addressed potential issues proactively, we’ll have issues with staff take-up. And people’s memories are long. It becomes a diabolical mess.”
Darren Vann, head of HR, Paultons Park
Cover off the practicalities
Certainty also relates to the practicalities of implementing new software and engaging with a new vendor. Even the best software can be a failure if you don’t get implementation right or choose vendors you can rely on. The CTO knows that.
They’ll want to understand:
- Timescales. Nobody wants the disruption of roll out for six months. How long will the software take to get up and running?
- Cost certainty. How much does the software cost over its lifetime? What unexpected costs could occur, and is there contingency in the budget?
- The roll-out process. What will implementation look like? How much disruption will there be? How much vendor support is there?
- Incremental early value. Big ‘ta-da’ moments are your enemy. What’s the earliest value you can unlock? Build momentum, then scale.
- Vendor trustworthiness, reliability and reputation. Will these vendors leave us in the lurch, or support us as partners?
- Minimum IT resource. How much IT resource will we need to commit to support roll-out? Will we need to provide support when the software is up and running, too? The vendor should set this expectation.
“When implementation hasn’t worked for us, it’s because we implemented as HR but without IT support; we didn’t have a clear idea what we wanted so roll-out was all over the place, and we didn’t have the business on-side.
“Two years later we started again but this time with a dedicated business analyst and IT contact. That made an enormous difference.”
Katie Thompson, head of HR operations, Insight Investment
3. Integrations
To sign off on any new tech, your CTO will want to know how it’ll fit within your existing technology architecture. That’s especially true of HR software, which needs to interact with multiple systems (your payroll software, to name just one) and handle lots of overlapping tasks and data.
At its best, HR software gives you joined-up people data across your whole business. That data should move seamlessly from system to system – like from recruitment to payroll and learning.
This joined-up data helps departments collaborate better, draw insights, and make decisions that are better for the business as a whole.
For example, combining people data with your finance data can give insights into team profitability. This might then help you make the case for increasing training investment for certain teams, for instance, or might give you a blueprint to improve performance elsewhere.
People data can add context and insight to other data across the organisation – ultimately to power better decision-making and better organisational outcomes. But that all hinges on good integrations that empower you to move data from place to place.
Your CTO will likely look for:
- Major business-critical systems integrations (no manual data transfer)
- Minor organisation-specific integrations that make life easier
- Out-of-the-box integrations that won’t incur extra cost
- Configurable integrations and/or the possibility to add custom integrations
4. Usability
“Low adoption rates are often one of the biggest hurdles to successful tech implementation projects,” Stevens says. The software you have is only as good as the software you use. That means the CTO wants to understand that you’re choosing the right technology, yes, and that implementation will deliver what was proposed on time and on budget. But they’ll also want some assurances from the HR team that employees and managers will actually use the software. “If the system creates friction, it’ll quickly get a reputation for being clunky and unhelpful”, Stevens warns. “And that’s usually hard to shake”. Even if you resolve those initial issues, first impressions matter. As the saying goes: once bitten, twice shy.
“Often, your HR technology is people’s first experience of your business. So you need something that’s user-friendly and engaging. For us, that means a major question around new software is: how will it make our people’s lives easier?”
Darren Vann, head of HR, Paultons Park
Ultimately, this could lead to delays and workarounds, which can decrease security, impact delivery, hurt the employee experience, and damage morale. That’s what the CTO wants to avoid – and has probably seen happen too many times.
Make sure your business case:
- Shows how managers and HR will use it day-to-day – ideally independently, in real time, without waiting on endless vendor support. In practice, that usually means you’re investing in tech that’s self-service, or that comes with exceptional 24/7 dedicated support.
- Highlights the vendor’s support processes. What are their SLAs for customer service tickets? What are their disaster recovery SLAs? Be especially wary of engaging with resellers, who can often add an extra layer of communication and complexity (AKA: time) when you need help.
- Covers off what’ll happen with ongoing product updates. How often will the system need updating? When will updates happen? Will these need internal IT resource to implement, or all be deployed centrally by the provider? (The latter’s what you’d expect if you’re choosing a SaaS solution).
The CTO is another huge ally for HR because they’re the department that will help protect the business – and, by extension, you – from the risk of a costly technology investment mistake.
If you can show them there’s a real business problem that needs solving now, they’ll help you ensure your chosen solution and vendor are the right choices for the business. In other words, they’re a major asset who’ll help you make this project a success.
Building a strong business case for winning the CTO’s approval
To secure investment for strategic business HR software, it is crucial to obtain the CTO's buy-in. The CTO evaluates potential investments based on four main priorities: security, certainty, integrations, and usability. Ensuring robust security measures, establishing project certainty, facilitating seamless system integrations, and promoting user-friendly interfaces are essential. Involving the CTO early in the process and addressing their specific concerns helps build a strong, objective business case, ultimately safeguarding the organisation from costly mistakes and enhancing the likelihood of project success.
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