And an investment in the cloud is something that could likely involve a larger swath of the executive suite.

If a company wants to talk about moving to a cloud-based model, a solution provider is more likely to move deeper into the C-suite, such as the CFO, or the “most senior person who is going to write the check,” says Jeremy MacBean, director of business development for IT Weapons.com, a managed services provider based in Brampton, Ontario.

While line-of-business executives will offer their input on how the technology will be used, CIOs, MacBean said, will tend to look at such issues as security and infrastructure in a potential technology deal.

A recent study by the Society for Information Management (SIM), a professional organization for IT managers and executives, seems to back up MacBean’s claim. In response to a question about who in their companies makes decisions on IT architecture and policy, more than half of the roughly 1,200 respondents – multiple answers were allowed – the CIO came out on top (60 percent), followed by a technical steering committee (55 percent).

But on technology purchasing, the decision making after the CIO is more diffuse. Sixty-one percent of respondents said the CIO is involved in buying decisions. After that, it’s the technical steering committee (40 percent), a business steering committee (27 percent), and the CFO (24 percent).

“IT purchasing at least has to go through a process,” said Leon Kappelman, a professor of information systems at the University of North Texas and the lead researcher in the SIM study. There are “things like architecture, how it fits, the difficulties of integration, security, all those things have to be judged, and that’s really something IT does. But in the end, it’s still a business decision.”

Hollander, of Netelligent, has witnessed a change among CIOs over the last decade, especially a “dramatic” improvement in their business knowledge that has helped make them “omnipresent” when it comes to technology buying decisions.

“They’re inwardly focused and doing a better job,” Hollander said, yet they’re not shy about seeking advice from a vendor or solution provider.

“Now, they’re saying, ‘Guide me more,’” Hollander said.