How to get intranet buy-in from your CFO

Pitching an intranet project to your CFO is a completely different ball game from pitching your CEO. Forget the vision talk. Forget the “employee engagement” line. CFOs don’t care about feelings. They care about facts.

For them, it’s simple: does the investment create measurable value, reduce costs, or manage risk better than the alternatives? If not, it’s a no.

Here’s what CFOs told us about pitching to them…

“Talk ROI, not warm and fuzzy”

🧠 Takeaway: Ditch “boosting morale”. Lead with measurable business impact in euros, hours, or percentages.

Telling your CFO the intranet will “make people happier” is a fast track to rejection. Happiness doesn’t appear on a P&L.

What does?

• Cutting onboarding time by 27%, saving €180K in ramp-up costs
• Reducing employee turnover by 5%, which means €500K saved in hiring and training
• Streamlining communication, saving X hours per week across the workforce (translating to €Y in regained productivity)

If you can’t put a number on it, your CFO won’t put money into it.

“Don’t surprise me. Ever.”

🧠 Takeaway: If the first time they hear about your €100K idea is at budget review, you’ve already lost.

CFOs hate last-minute pitches. They want early visibility, time to ask questions, and the chance to factor your project into forecasts.

So don’t drop an intranet proposal on them out of nowhere. Involve finance early. Share your assumptions. Ask for input before you’re asking for approval.

That way, when it lands in the budget review, it’s not a surprise. It’s already baked in.

💡 Pro tip: CFOs are more likely to back projects they’ve had a hand in shaping.

“Make the business case airtight”

🧠 Takeaway: If your cost-benefit case wouldn’t survive a board meeting, it won’t survive the CFO.

Your CFO is the gatekeeper of financial discipline. They need to know this project holds up under scrutiny. That means:

• Total cost of ownership: license, implementation, training, maintenance
• Benefits: clearly quantified
• Alignment: show how it connects to strategic goals (productivity, retention, efficiency)

If you can’t walk them through assumptions and methodology with confidence, expect them to poke holes and block spend.

“No vanity metrics allowed”

🧠 Takeaway: Page views and likes don’t cut it. Show productivity, retention, or real cost savings.

CFOs couldn’t care less about “engagement metrics” like likes, clicks, or page views. They don’t measure outcomes, they measure activity.

Instead, focus on hard outcomes:

• Time saved (and its financial value)
• Reduction in employee churn
• Shorter onboarding cycles
• Decreased duplication of effort

The golden rule: if you wouldn’t put it in front of the board, don’t put it in front of the CFO.

“Make it cheaper than doing nothing”

🧠 Takeaway: The real competitor isn’t another tool, it’s inertia. Show that “doing nothing” costs more.

CFOs are ruthless about opportunity cost. If you want investment, prove that sticking with the status quo is more expensive.

Paint the picture:

• Inaction = higher churn. Every 1% increase in turnover costs €X in rehiring and training.
• Inaction = wasted hours. Employees spending three hours a week searching for files adds up to €Y a year.
• Inaction = duplicated spend. Without consolidation, we’re paying for multiple overlapping tools.

If you can show the intranet pays for itself – or better yet, makes money by saving money – you’re halfway there.

“Prove it scales or forget it”

🧠 Takeaway: CFOs fund impact that scales across the business, not pet projects in one department.

An intranet that helps just one team? Not worth it. An intranet that improves efficiency across every function? Now you’re talking.

Frame it as infrastructure:

• HR uses it for onboarding
• IT uses it to centralize support and cut tickets
• Leadership uses it to communicate strategy
• Every employee uses it to find what they need, fast

CFOs want ROI that compounds as adoption grows.

“Call out the hidden costs (before I do)”

🧠 Takeaway: Don’t make the CFO dig for risks. Put them on the table yourself.

CFOs are trained to find the fine print. If they have to ask about hidden costs – implementation, training, integrations – you’ve already lost credibility.

Be upfront:

• Yes, there’s an implementation cost. Here’s how we’ll control it
• Yes, there’s training. Here’s why it’s short and scalable
• Yes, there’s ongoing support. Here’s the annual figure

Transparency builds trust. Hide anything, and they’ll assume the worst.

CFOs want ROI, not rhetoric

CFOs don’t care about “tools employees love” or “engagement boosts.” They care about whether the intranet delivers measurable financial outcomes.

Frame your project around:

• Hard ROI (hours saved, costs reduced, productivity gained)
• Opportunity cost (doing nothing costs more)
• Scalability (value multiplies across teams)
• Transparency (no surprises, no hidden costs.

Get that right, and your CFO won’t just sign off, they will defend your business case in front of the board.

Do this, and your CFO won’t just approve the intranet. They’ll own the case for it.