Hiring sales staff will boost NetSuite's growth rate, a goal it stated during its 2010 fourth quarter earnings call, Gill says. "We want to invest in sales people who can make our business grow faster. The plan has us adding sales people in each quarter."

Bringing on more engineers allows the company to add product components that appeal to potential customers, especially those in vertical industries.

"By adding features, you would win a deal because you have more functions you didn't have the year before," Gill says. "Big companies are demanding. They add more requirements." NetSuite will add "a few" accounting and finance staff to its Manila, Philippines, office that handles back-office functions like billing and accounts receivable as well as "one or two" finance employees in the U.S.

"We grew through 2009, but growth did slow," says Gill, whose 1,000-person firm is based in San Mateo, California. "But we did okay through the downturn. My best gage is our economic health and that is good. Things are very healthy so far."

While bolstering IT staff ranks vital to some CFO's business plans, not all companies are shunning accounting and finance staff additions, of course.