CFOs can't integrate new software themselves, but they can buy anything they want. Some of them let this go to their heads.

When I hear NetSuite ads, it's only while listening to the absolute dumbest sports talk shows. Apparently this marketing works...

If this line of argument is true, then a quick glance at r/talesfromtechsupport makes me think there's no such thing as a CIO.

That's not entirely accurate, if not to say that's completely inaccurate.

Contrary to what people might think, companies are not ran as military with the CEO being a commander-in-chief. In most of the companies, members of the C-suite have a certain or total autonomy to make any decisions that they want as long as it is somewhat within their domain. The conflicts between them are resolved via negotiation and horse trading. Just because the CIO does not like what the CFO is doing, does not mean that the CFO is wrong in making that decision, same as just because the CFO does not like what the CIO is doing does not mean that the CIO is wrong. When one CxO steps on feet of another CxO it is either resolved by reaching a new agreement going forward or resolution is punted into the future or one of the CxOs leaves.

I cannot tell how is each company organized, but I am working in a $250 billion company and I had the occasion a few years ago to find out in detail how this works when our CIO had to approve some IT purchase and there were some technical problems with the authorization system: our CFO does not have the authority to sign or approve any IT contract and nobody in the company will ever execute the payment. We are not organized as military, but each of us have spending limits (from $10,000 the lowest to a few hundred millions $ for CxO) and we cannot override that. Yes, we had people that bought stuff in their spending authority but not in their domain authority (that is much harder to limit in a system) and they were fired every time it happened.

Perhaps you should consider that your old, $250 billion company is going to be a bit more formal than a young, $50 million company.

If your company really does have a purchasing proces so rigorous that it will reject an "IT" contract signed by the CFO despite it being within their purchasing limit, then there's a reason for that. The reason typically being that in the past there was enough naughtiness by some CxO that they went to all the trouble of putting some heavy bondage into their purchasing rules.

Also, I would be willing to make a cash-money bet that CxOs shopping outside their domain authority don't get immediately fired for that. Even at your company.

Yes, you are right, they are not immediately fired; they "retire" immediately or leave the company in the next few months. In the past month we just "retired" a few directors and another one is "just leaving" in 3 months, until then his spending limit is revoked and he is just onboarding the replacement.

If C<X>O titles are meaningless if they don't confer absolute authority over <X> then they are pretty much all meaningless, so what's your point?

he said it’s a 50 person company. even if he had the authority you mention he would not be a “CIO”