When a company is too small to justify having a Chief Information Officer (CIO), they can hire a company that offers CIO Outsourcing services. This individual helps the company look at its goals from an IT perspective.
For example, one of the company’s goals may be to grow by 30% in in the next 12 months while maintaining or increasing profitably. As a CIO looks at this goal, the CIO would realize that it is difficult hire and train enough quality people while maintaining profitability. So, the CIO would look at potential technological solutions that could increase productivity.
Possible solutions could include CRM software, streamlining current work processes to increase productivity, or integrating systems to reduce manual data entry. The CIO would look for off-the-shelf solutions as well as custom programming to understand which would be the most cost-effective for the company’s specific business needs. All of this information would then be presented to the CEO for a final decision.
Other roles an outsourced CIO can play is assessing options before making a large IT purchase, such as a new phone system. The CIO would analyze users’ needs and the different technology options in order to create to recommend the right system for the company. The recommendation would include the recommended system as well as the best way to implement it in order to minimize downtime.
While these services are valuable to a small to mid-size business when needed, only large organizations can justify the cost a CIO full-time. CIO Outsourcing allows a business to use the services of a CIO only when they are needed. So, they can get the advantages of better IT decisions for their business without the ongoing expense of a full-time CIO.
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