A traditional Chief Information Officer or CIO for short provides a strategic data plan for your entire company. They are experts in understanding technology and how it can be used to achieve your business objectives. For businesses that are small or medium-sized, a CIO is someone who is a budget breaker. However, what if you could take advantage of all the benefit, but reduce the cost so that it fits into your budget? This is where a vCIO comes in.
A Virtual Chief Information Officer, or as it is commonly referred to as vCIO, is someone that can help you with the burden of technology, as well as to develop long term business techniques and strategies. What is even better, you can hire someone to provide you with these services when needed, which will significantly reduce the cost of hiring someone to help you with this.
What does a vCIO do?
This service will provide insights into the development of strategies that are connected to technology. This means that they will spend a lot of time digging around their client’s wiring and testing customer’s technology structures. According to Steadfast Solutions, they should, perform the same things as a usual CIO, which includes working with and advising IT department, creating IT goals, planning the IT budget, reworking business processes, analyzing, and implementing technology changes. Their work begins with an evaluation of the current technology used, ultimately building a plan for a more productive future. They use software analysis tools and the good old fashion field work to perform the necessary network assessments. Some tools that vCIO experts use are optional, however, having someone to address your technological needs is not.
Does your company need vCIO?
Before deciding on hiring a vCIO you need to ask yourself and answer these questions:
1. What role does technology have in your business? – Do you know which apps your customers and employees rely on? Do you know what your security requirements are and do you know why you need to keep your data safe? Do you know what data needs your company has?
2. What are your plans for growing your company? – Does your business have a growth plan to help you figure out what your future technological needs will be?
3. What are your business goals? – Do you know what are the short and long term business goals of your company, including what technology and systems you will need to achieve the goals?
If you do not know or if you are unclear about the answers to these questions, it is likely that you need a vCIO in your company. Generally, any business that is thinking about the future of the company and its growth needs a vCIO.
Conclusion
Think about how a vCIO can align your business IT strategy and help you achieve your overall goals. Hence, do not waste any more time and start searching for a vCIO expert.
Kim Marks 
Nicola Holder