What Is a Virtual CIO and How Can Outsourcing Your IT Save Your Business Time and Money?
With the increasingly rapid pace of technology change, every business needs an IT expert, or a team of professionals, that understands your computer systems and can provide IT support. Nowadays, many organisations are choosing to hire an outside company to fulfil this role. Known as a Virtual Chief Information Officer, or vCIO, here’s what you need to know about vCIOs and how they can save your business time and money.
What does a vCIO do?
Traditionally, the responsibilities of a CIO are extremely diverse and demanding. The role encompasses a vast range of tasks associated with IT maintenance, development, monitoring and management. Employing CIO’s can be costly for businesses – and outsourcing is often far more cost-effective.
A Title as Well as a Service
When you hire a vCIO, you can expect a portfolio of IT services that centre around information technology strategy and implementation. The company will be responsible for formulating strategic IT goals, planning the IT budget, asset tracking and management, analysing business processes and reworking them, implementing technology changes, storage and security of data, and identifying opportunities to use new technology tools.
You can also expect a vCIO to manage all IT projects, liaise with internet service providers and third-party application providers if necessary, and develop budgets to enable business owners to predict future expenditure.
Why Should You Hire a vCIO?
With a vCIO, you get:
- Professionals with a sound knowledge of technology trends
- A single point of contact for all IT related issues
- Unlimited access to a helpdesk, 24/7, with no additional bills
- Peace of mind that data is secure in the event of a security breach, outage or natural disaster
By hiring a vCIO, your organisation avoids the time consuming and the potentially expensive process of recruiting and training a CIO who knows your business inside out. Providing services for a fraction of the time and cost of a full-time CIO, with Productiv you get access to a team of IT experts who know and understand your current IT systems, and whose role includes working to optimise hardware and software to save you money and improve your bottom line.
A vCIO Is Responsible for the Alignment of IT and Business Goals
The crucial benefit of hiring a vCIO is that you are choosing a team of professionals who understand both technology and business goals. With an ability to link IT systems to specific business objectives on an ongoing basis, a vCIO is on your side, providing IT plans and strategies to help your business fulfill its goals.
Contact Productiv today to find out more about our IT managed services. Allow us to ensure the long-term health and viability of your business’s IT systems.
