7 Benefits of Hiring a vCIO to Manage Your Technology and Protect Your Business
IT is a vital component to business growth. Yet, not all businesses can afford to hire an internal IT department. That’s why the average business spends almost 12 percent* of their IT budget outsourcing support.
When you outsource, you gain the wisdom and insight of those who live and breathe business technology at a reduced cost.
In this blog, we will explore the benefits of working with a vCIO to your business.
Technology – The Core of 21st Century Business
At the heart of every enterprise business today, no matter the industry, service, or product they manufacture, is one thing; technology. Technology runs, well, everything, from making sure appointments are kept to processing payments, tracking orders, paying employees, you name it. Yes, many of these are basic functions, but they’re still essential and needed to keep your business running smoothly.
Of course, if you’re a startup company or an entrepreneur, you’re probably handling the day-to-day duties of a CIO yourself. At least for now, that’s fine as you’re still small-ish and your staff is small too. But what’s going to happen in a year? How about in 5 or 10 years when your business will be substantially larger? At that point, managing your IT will be vastly more complex and certainly not something you want to do yourself. That’s when hiring a vCIO can be highly beneficial. Below are 7 reasons why:
1 – Expert Advice When You Need It
Having a roadmap, if you will, for your future IT can be invaluable. When you work with an Evolve vCIO, we can build that map for your business. That way, as your enterprise business grows, provides new services, and takes on new employees, you’ll know which way to turn next, IT-wise. Having a vCIO on-call is an excellent method to achieve all of your many business goals.
2 – An Unbiased Viewpoint for Big Decisions
One of the most significant drawbacks of a growing business? Being too close to a project to look at it through an unbiased lens. That goes for you as the business owner as well as your supporting team. When assessing needs, implementing new technology, or solving company pain points, bias can lead to misunderstandings and costly mistakes.
With a vCIO, however, you get the opinions of an expert who sees things from afar and can give you unbiased answers and thoughts about what business moves to make. How to improve efficiency, for example, increase cyber-security or lower operating costs through acquisition of new tech. The result; solutions that better fit your business’s needs and promote further growth and success.
3 – A Virtual CIO Can Save Your Business Money
The typical IT expert is skilled, experienced, and capable. A CIO, even more so, with talents and knowledge that’s very valuable. The problem; all that valuable skill and knowledge is going to cost you. If you’re an SME, the cost of a CIO is likely out of your budget, let alone hiring an entire IT staff.
With an Evolve vCIO, you get all of these excellent qualities at a fraction of the cost. Plus, since we are outsourced, all peripheral costs disappear, including training, insurance, benefits, and other overhead expenses.
4 – Finding, and Closing, Operational Gaps
One of the many challenges in any business is to find operational gaps and close them. That includes;
- Ensuring your business complies with industry regulations.
- Auditing and improving your security efforts.
- Managing and improving business processes and systems.
- Preparing the business for audits.
- Developing company processes and policies.
All of these tasks, and more, need to be understood well to apply the best solutions. Asking your IT team to do this can be overwhelming at best. If you don’t have an IT team, it’s nearly impossible. However, with a vCIO onboard, you’ll have an IT expert who can chart find these gaps, and close them before they become a larger, more costly (and image-damaging) issue.
5 – Fresh Ideas from a Seasoned Expert
One of the best reasons to hire a vCIO is this; fresh viewpoints about your business, how it operates, and where it should be going. You will get this sage, experienced advice from an unbiased source. Our Evolve vCIO’s come to the table with a plethora of excellent ideas and strategies, all of which you can take advantage of when they’re part of your team.
6 – Help Migrating and Integrating Data
If there’s one thing that holds true in business, it’s this; technology keeps improving, and data grows and moves with it. That’s not a problem so much as the task of keeping up with it and managing it, which is where a vCIO’s experience and skill come in handy. A vCIO can lead in coordinating your data. They can plan and carry out a data audit to find out what data you have, where your data is held, what level of protection you need to avoid loss or damage to your data. A vCIO can consolidate, update, streamline and ensure your data management is as efficient and secure as it can be.
7 – Expert Help Before Disaster Strikes
It’s nearly impossible to be fully prepared in the event of a natural or human-made disaster, it’s true. With an Evolve vCIO onboard, however, surviving and recovering from a catastrophe becomes significantly easier. That’s because they can create a business continuity plan specific to your needs, one that helps the company get back on its feet quickly once the recovery process starts. From flooding to fires, hacking events, hurricanes, and more, your business will be far better protected when you’re working with one of our vCIOs.
In Conclusion
Technology, for better or worse, keeps changing and improving. When you have the right people in the right places, keeping up with these changes is significantly easier. That’s why hiring an Evolve vCIO to manage your enterprise business is so valuable. They will be your trusted advisor, with unbiased opinions and expert skills that can take your enterprise business to new heights.
If working with an Evolve vCIO is something you would like to explore, then please reach out and book a consultation call.