Would Your Business Benefit From Having a CIO?

CIO is an acronym for chief information officer — a member of the executive team who is responsible for developing a strategy that leverages technology to improve business, setting standards and metrics for usage, and keeping an eye on the future for new opportunities. 

As technology now plays a critical role in most daily workflows, making sure it’s aligned with your business’s goals can make a significant difference in whether or not you achieve them. Unfortunately, while a CIO is a common position in large companies, few small and mid-size organizations have the financial resources to support the position. So, while most organizations would benefit from having a CIO’s skills, the cost-benefit analysis isn’t always clear. 

Clarifying CIO Roles and Responsibilities 

Before we dive into whether you would need a CIO, it's important to understand what separates a true CIO from someone who simply carries the title. Some IT providers have, unfortunately, been known to throw around the CIO designation to pad their invoices. But a real CIO brings strategic value that goes far beyond day-to-day IT maintenance.

The key differentiator? A true CIO should be someone you, as a business leader, find valuable to sit down and discuss strategy with. They provide thoughtful, proactive conversations about leveraging your IT to align with your business objectives — not just today, but one to two years down the road.

A CIO is NOT:

• Synonymous with a CTO

• An IT manager who focuses only on maintaining current systems

• An IT director who receives strategy summaries second-hand

• Your on-site tech support person

• Someone who primarily talks to office managers rather than executives

A true CIO:

• Creates IT roadmaps aligned with business vision

• Focuses on big-picture planning with ROI considerations

• Communicates proactively about IT trends, risks, and opportunities

• Questions IT decisions to ensure long-term business success

• Brings the right expertise to the table at the right time

Do You Need CIO Insights?

All businesses need someone to complete the tasks and responsibilities typically assigned to a CIO. If you already have a close relationship with an IT provider you trust, they’d be in the best position to tell you whether or not a CIO would bring you the amount of ROI you’d need to justify the cost. However, I can give you a few more general tips.

Does Your Business Need CIO-Level Guidance? 

If most of these apply to you, the answer is likely YES:

• 250+ employees or rapid growth planned

• Technology-dependent operations - software drives your business

• Multiple systems that must integrate seamlessly

• Remote/hybrid workforce across locations

• Regulatory compliance requirements in your industry

• Customer-facing digital platforms (websites, apps, portals)

• Data drives decisions - analytics matter to your success

• Collaborative teams sharing information and projects

• Sensitive data handling - customer, financial, or IP protection

• Process automation goals - reducing manual work

• Strategic leadership is focused on long-term planning

The more boxes you check, the greater your need for CIO expertise.

How CIO Insights Align IT With Your Business Strategy

A CIO will work closely with the CEO, CFO, and other leadership team members to coordinate an IT roadmap that aligns with your organization's vision. They translate your big-picture business vision into an IT path that complements and assists your company's efforts.

This strategic approach focuses on several key elements:

Big-Picture Planning

A CIO can help you make IT decisions based on business requirements, total cost of ownership (TCO), and return on investment (ROI) rather than quick fixes.

Avoiding Mistakes 

A CIO will advise you on avoiding IT solutions that will inevitably break and require repeated attention. 

Proactive Communication

A true CIO will regularly hold business reviews with leadership to plan for future IT needs and clearly communicate trends, risks, and opportunities.

Playing Devil's Advocate

Are your current solutions the best long-term options? Your CIO can help you ask the tough questions that are needed to develop a stable tech foundation.

Uncovering Risks

In today's environment of cloud apps and shadow IT, it's nearly impossible to have a full picture of your IT risks and opportunities. You may not even know that employees are storing company information on unauthorized applications, or that they'll retain access to this information after leaving your company.

A CIO will initiate discussions about security risks and available solutions BEFORE your business experiences issues like breaches or data loss. They’ll proactively explain trends like increased phishing attacks and their potential costs, working to prevent problems rather than simply responding to them.

Assisting With Network and Systems Design 

A forward-looking CIO will also construct an appropriate IT environment that your business can depend upon and that your budget can support. 

Without this strategic approach, businesses often end up with a hodgepodge of IT solutions that meet today's needs but create tomorrow's problems — sometimes requiring complete infrastructure overhauls that could have been avoided.

Measuring CIO Value and ROI

Whether your CIO is in-house or outsourced, you want to ensure they're delivering real value. A CIO's ROI is driven by cost optimization and technology alignment with your business. 

Key performance indicators include:

• Improvements to overall efficiency 

• IT cost optimization 

• Risk reduction 

• Increases to your organization’s resilience 

What Are My Alternatives?

If you don’t need and/or have the financial resources for a full-time CIO, an alternative solution is a vCIO, or virtual CIO — also frequently called a fractional CIO. This option provides you with the knowledge and expertise of a CIO on an as-needed basis.

This approach not only decreases your financial investment but, more importantly, gives you access to an expert who can provide insight into how the right technology can take your business to the next level, while prioritizing and monitoring your goals.

What Is a Virtual or Fractional CIO?

A vCIO is an outsourced IT executive who will work with you on a part-time or contractual basis. 

If your organization was a match for many of the use-cases for a CIO I outlined earlier, but you don’t have the budget or the continuous need for a full-time CIO, a vCIO may provide the best of both worlds. You’d still get the insights you need to help you align your tech with your long-term business goals, but at a pace and a budget that’s doable for more organizations. 

A CIO provides the most value to organizations that embrace change and rely on technology to drive success. The key is understanding how CIO-level strategic thinking could benefit your business and recognizing when you're getting real value versus just someone carrying the title.

The Best Way To Access CIO Skills on a Budget

If you’re on the fence about whether to hire in-house or outsource these skills, we have a recent blog that explores that topic in more detail. But if outsourcing looks like the best fit for your organization, you’ll have far more luck with that now, as opposed to, say, 5 years ago. 

A larger number of IT providers, including Marco, now offer IT consulting services, so you can access CIO or CISO skills on a budget. And as a plus, our vCIO and vCISO services come along with discounted rates on other IT consulting services. That way, you can put some of their plans into place quickly and without breaking the bank. 

Click the link below to browse the IT consulting services we offer and what’s included.