Information technology is a vital aspect of any business, but you might be asking yourself: “How much should I be focused on improving our IT, and how many resources should be dedicated to doing so?” A Chief Information Officer is usually the person responsible for asking these questions, creating solutions, and implementing them to manage the IT of a business. While having a CIO is an important part of having a successful business, many small- and medium-sized businesses may not have the resources to keep a well-educated, experienced CIO on staff fulltime, with the salary and benefits that a CIO would expect and deserve. In addition, your business likely has a need for someone with the technical know-how of a CIO to help plan and manage current and future IT projects, but may not have a need for their level of service 40 hours a week. So what do you do? Hire a qualified CIO but end up dedicating too many of your IT resources to just paying that person? Hire a young-gun who has bright ideas and will work for less, but doesn’t have the experience necessary to always make the best decisions for the company’s future? We’re here to suggest an alternative: the Virtual CIO.
So what is a “Virtual” CIO?
As a Managed Service Provider, we’re offering to take the responsibilities of a traditional CIO – working with your IT budget to plan new projects, oversee their implementation, analyze and improve existing infrastructure – without demanding the sort of pay that a CIO does in today’s world. You can rest assured that your business interests are our business interests: the more you grow, the more we grow with you. The more secure and seamless your business is, the more time and resources you have to grow your business rather than just maintain it. You’ll have the experience and knowledge of not just one person but an entire team at your disposal, working to make your business more efficient and profitable. Best of all, you’ll never be paying someone to just sit behind a desk.
The downfalls of the traditional CIO and IT staff…
Most CIO’s don’t want to be doing the daily sort of IT maintenance that’s necessary at a business – which usually leads to your IT department growing from a single person to an entire staff, even if it means too much downtime for everyone. Automation and remote support means most small- and medium-sized businesses have little need for a 40-hours-a-week on-site IT staff. Sure, having hands on deck for project implementation or emergency situations is nice, but keeping an entire IT staff happy costs a lot of money, and there’s still no guarantee how long they’ll stick around before finding something new – which, in such a large and ever-growing industry, is not a matter of “if” but “when”. You then have the problem of finding a qualified applicant, paying for their training, and there’s still no promise they’ll be a good fit.
Managed Services: Increased service, increased stability; decreased cost.
By switching your IT to our Managed Services, you’ll be covered 24×7 for everything from the simple password reset to the mission-critical server failure – plus all your project planning and implementation needs – by an entire team of IT professionals, for a fraction of the cost of a traditional on-site CIO and IT staff. Our team has engineered a plethora of successful, secure, and profitable networks, and has the experience and skills necessary to maintain and grow these networks. In addition, managing and growing your infrastructure in a cost-efficient, future-ready way lets you put that money that usually pays for IT people to sit around back into the business itself, increasing profits and efficacy across the board. Most importantly, you’ll know that your interests are our interests – we’re not looking for the next best thing; we’re looking to make your business the best it can be.Contact us to find out more about switching from a traditional CIO and IT staff to Managed IT Services, and see just how many benefits come from having us as your virtual CIO.
