The Business Value of a Virtual CIO

What's a Virtual CIO, you ask?  Good question!

Most small organizations can't afford to have an experienced IT Information Officer on-staff all of the time.  It's just not in the budget and truthfully in most instances a full-time IT Manager isn't necessary.  BUT . . . every organization will hit periodic points where it's nice to have that experienced professional who can guide them over the rough spots in technology to the BEST solution for the business because they've seen the situation before and know the pitfalls to avoid.  That's what a Virtual CIO does!  We give guidance when you're in unfamiliar territory and help you keep your IT resources operating at their most efficient levels.

Here's an example of what a good Virtual CIO can bring to your organization - An organization that I worked with decided it was time to replace their accounting and customer tracking system without involving me until after the new purchase contract was signed.  They didn't bring me in early on in the process because they thought they understood their needs better than I did which may have been true but they didn't have any experience dealing with buying software before and didn't understand the technical aspects of such an acquisition.

I was finally brought in to "implement" what they had already purchased.

Now for a little background.  My company had worked with this software company before and didn't have a lot of respect for them and we did have an in-depth understanding of the client organizations operation.

I started doing a little checking and determined that:

1. The sales person had oversold the ability of the software
2. The software wouldn't do half of what the client thought it did
3. The software was still in development and wouldn't be available until well after the deadline.
4. The contract didn't include the cost of retraining the client staff on the new software.
5. The cost of migrating the data from the old system to the new one was "extra"
6. There were going to be a need for significant hardware upgrades to support the new software if and when it was ready. That really jacked up the total cost of the project
7. - 999 and the list of problems and issues went on and on

It took me only a few hours to put the puzzle pieces together and determine that the contract needed to be cancelled.  It took a little while and a few threats but we got the clients check back from the software vendor.

The next steps involved setting up a formal software evaluation process with interviews, reference checks and product demonstrations.  We pre-screened the software vendor candidates to weed out the time wasters and standardized the way proposals were presented to keep things consistent.  This time, I was involved in every meeting and was available to ask  the pointed technical questions to help the client make an informed decision.  In the end, the client got exactly what they wanted and knew exactly what it would cost for everything.

A good Virtual CIO develops an in-depth understanding of your business and your industry combined with the technical expertise that can save you time and money implementing whatever it is your business needs.