The Chief Information Officer (CIO) is the person in an organization who is responsible for the information technology and computer systems that support enterprise goals. As information technology and systems have become more important, the CIO has come to be viewed in many organizations as a key contributor in formulating strategic goals. Typically, the CIO in a large enterprise delegates technical decisions to employees more familiar with details. Usually, a CIO proposes the information technology an enterprise will need to achieve its goals and then works within a budget to implement the plan. Typically, a CIO is involved with analyzing and reworking existing business processes, with identifying and developing the capability to use new tools, with reshaping the enterprise’s physical infrastructure and network access, and with identifying and exploiting the enterprise’s knowledge resources.

The unfortunate reality for the small- to medium-sized business is that a qualified CIO to take the reins of these important issues comes at significant cost. This cost may be prohibitive for the typical start-up or growth company. Additionally, due to the size of the SMB, even if cost were not an issue, it can be difficult to justify a C-level executives’ cost when a full-time schedule does not mean full-time utilization.

As a result, the SMB will often turn to local IT consulting firms that are within their budget to address some of these needs. These companies typically are tasked with solving individual technology problems or support issues on an incident-by-incident basis. While these companies may generally perform these support requests successfully, their ability to understand their customers’ business needs are limited due to the scope of their involvement or commitment to their own revenue needs as opposed to client needs.

The effective and strategic use of common enterprise-wide process knowledge requires someone with a cross-functional perspective. CIO’s have taken a leadership role in re-engineering their organizations’ business processes and the underpinning IT infrastructures to achieve more productive, efficient and valuable use of information within the enterprise. Many are also taking a leadership role in knowledge management and the valuation of intellectual capital.

To summarize, the primary role of the CIO (Chief Information Officer) is to provide technology vision and leadership for developing and implementing IT initiatives that support the corporation and enterprise.
Many small- to medium-sized businesses often see the need for this technology leadership and understand its value but are unable to acquire an experienced executive due to a variety of reasons, such as:

• Size of company. Most experienced executives are looking for large, established enterprises.
• Compensation costs. A typical CIO salary starts, depending on the marketplace, at around $165,000 per year, not including bonuses. (CIO Insight magazine, April 2008)
• Lack of full-time need. The small- to medium- business may not require a full-time executive to effectively manage their IT needs.

As a result of this market need, Bradman Group offers an IT Governance service, known as Virtual CIO (VCIO), to its clients. This product enables the SMB to afford the type of seasoned, experienced leadership that much larger companies can afford, delivered through a service-oriented approach. All of the talent that you would expect a full-time C-level executive to bring, such as industry contacts, technical knowledge, business acumen, and leadership talent are delivered at a fraction of the cost of locating, on-boarding, and compensating a standard executive.

Bradman Group Virtual CIO can help the SMB realize its success by setting a sound IT direction across its organization through leadership strength, insider access, and highly detailed knowledge of technology and business.

Contact us for a fifteen minute discussion that will change your entire outlook on IT.

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Tags: cio, Virtual CIO, Virtual CIO

This entry was posted on Monday, June 16th, 2008 at 8:31 pm and is filed under Executive Briefs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.