I'm considering taking over a CIO/Director position and this will cause me to have to relocate (which is what I was looking for in the first place).  I've been in the CIO position at a larger company for 6 years and have had great success there.  I've interviewed with this new firm succesfully and they have asked me back for a third round of interviews.  Pending a successful third round of interviews I'm fairly confident that they are going to make me an offer.  I like the organization and in particular where they are located (it's a great place to raise a family) but I have concerns about whether or not the organization is serious about investing in their IT group.

In interviewing with them I got to meet and have lunch with their current CIO (he is leaving the company and starting his own business) and came away from the conversation(s) with two impressions; first, they are very capitol expense adverse in terms of IT and second, they have made extrmely minimal investments in their IT systems thus far.  Their President/CEO fully intends to grow the organization and the brand over the next few years but I'm concerned that their current CIO has spent far too much time "pulling a rabbit from his hat", thus making something from nothing, and now the user base is accustomed to IT not asking for anything and delivering everything.  This, in my experience, is a recipe for disaster.  If you step into the position and don't produce "magic" then you not as good as the last guy, and if you do produce, you prove that they really don't need to do anything with their IT systems in terms of capitol investment and development.

There are some signs of hope however;  first, several of  the members of senior management that I spoke with felt that there needed to be some investment in IT and its systems.  Apparently the current IT group has only been able to deliver minimal projects for the last few years and is spending a large portion of time "putting out fires".   Second, In speaking with their CIO, I found that his IT budget (total dollars) was extremely high for the systems that they are running.  They have a minimal data center (really more of a "server room", most of their systems are AS/400 based and are old in design.  They outsource the majority of their operational systems (i.e. payroll, T&A, accounting, financials, etc.) so there is minimal in-house hardware.  There seems to be no long-term strategic vision for the IT group or its objectives.  All of their systems are "point" systems and everything is integrated through custom code.  Once I knew what their overall operating budget was I just cannot figure out where they are spending all of their money?  Is it proper for me to ask to see their P&L for IT prior to accepting an offer?  I would of course agree to an NDA for privacy concerns.