Can Your Business Benefit From Outsourcing CIO Services?

Can Your Business Benefit From Outsourcing CIO Services?

If you are like most business owners, CEOs, CFOs, etc., you spend a lot of time dealing with vendors for IT or network services, phone and Internet service providers, picking out new phone systems, servers, and other hardware. So, are you a CEO or a CIO? What is a CIO anyway you ask? Per Wikipedia: "Chief information officer(CIO), or information technology (IT) director, is a job title commonly given to the most senior executive in an enterprise responsible for the information technology and computer systems that support enterprise goals." Regardless of whether or not you are a part-time CIO or you have someone on your staff that is the part-time CIO, you may not be using an experienced/educated CIO and you could be wasting valuable time and money. An effective CIO surrounds themselves with professionals that have differing experiences so that they have a broad base to pull from to solve a problem. CIO's and IT professionals will spend a significant amount of time keeping up with industry trends technology changes. If your business is in the SMB space (less than 200 PC's) you most likely do not need a full time CIO (and support staff), an outsourced model would best serve your business.

How do I know when I need CIO services?

I have listed a few items below that would warrant the need for true IT planning and expertise with a CIO.

If it is time for a technology refresh then you need CIO services. Alternatively, perhaps you are not sure if you can squeeze a few more years out of your current hardware. You should not be making large IT expenditures just because... if your hardware is getting old and is not on maintenance then it may be time to replace. Typically, a server life is around 5 years and a workstations life can vary from 2 - 5 years depending on your industry.

Planning a business software upgrade or purchasing new ERP software regardless of it is a cloud application or not. Having a CIO assist you and the software vendor in evaluating if your network infrastructure is viable for an on-premise, cloud or hosted option is a valuable asset. Moving to the cloud is not always the best option for business, and working with a non-biased resource to assist you in making the right choice for your business can be critical for such a large investment.

Business acquisition or the addition of new locations. If you do have plans to expand, it is important to reach out to a CIO as soon as possible. Planning for an acquisition requires a lot of flexibility to ensure confidentiality goals are met along with starting up the business in a secure and productive environment. A CIO can help you make plans for these sensitive situations so you the business owner can worry about all the business details and decisions, not the IT. Most companies like CIS have no problem signing a non-disclosure document to ensure your transactions are kept confidential.

Relocation or a move is a big CIO job. You need to make sure that your ISP and phone service are available in your new location not to mention cable drops installed in the right places.

Recent data loss and/or an increase in virus threats are a sign that a CIO should review your network infrastructure. These are signs of an unhealthy network and can cost your business customers and lost productivity from your labor force.

Disaster recovery plan is needed for your business. Do you really have a plan? If it is to restore from backup, I recommend you ask your IT professional to prove it will work. Having a disaster recovery plan is crucial to any business. (Keep in mind that having a back up is not all that is involved with a true disaster recovery plan.) Having a CIO to discuss your downtime business costs and plans for recovery is probably the number one use for a CIO. They can help you determine how aggressive your recovery plan should be; one hour or eight hours is an example. Then provide a plan that fits your business needs and implement. It is really not a matter of if you will have a network failure or even a natural disaster, it is really a matter of when.

ISP (Internet Service Provider) and/or Phone problems or just changing services can be challenging and costly. Choosing a bad provider or even purchasing more services than you need can cost your company money. Most ISPs require long-term contracts that are hard break. Utilizing a CIO to review these contracts and having knowledge of the vendors that are providing good services at competitive prices can save your business money and perhaps even the risk of Internet outages.

You are not sure what IT assets your business owns including software licensing. The BSA is the organization that can fine businesses if they do not have the right software licensing. Disgruntled employees have been known to report such piracy acts to the BSA. Make sure your business is compliant.

Budgeting and planning for the future technology needs of your business. Having a long term plan in place for managing your IT assets can save you money and allow for budgeting these expenditures.

Your business does not have network policies and enforcement or perhaps they are too lax. Not every business wants to restrict certain websites for their employees; however, there are some sites and applications that most business owners do not want their employees to access due to lawsuits and of course productivity loss. Setting the right policies for your industry and business culture with the help of a CIO can help your business make the right steps toward a worry free workplace.

How do I hire a CIO service?

If your business is small to medium sized then hiring your own CIO will probably be cost prohibitive. As I discussed previously; as an SMB, your IT staff is probably not qualified enough, does not have the appropriate support staff, or lacks the vision needed for a CIO position. Perhaps you don't even have IT staff or if you do, then the job is part-time and their real job title is Office Manager, Operations Manager, or even Controller.

One way to get the experienced CIO services you need is to hire an outside firm that specializes in CIO services. These firms are highly specialized and bill for their services hourly. It is important to make sure that these firms are only providing CIO services and not representing any products, services or other solutions. There are a few such firms available to the Dallas Fort Worth area of north Texas. Ask other companies that you do business with who they use and if they are satisfied with the services. Always check references. Be sure the hourly rate is something that you can live with and that you are not charged for services unless you approve the services and expenses ahead of time. Ask for an outline of previous plans that they have worked on, or a high-level plan that has been implemented in an industry like your own.

Another way to get this CIO service is to hire a managed IT service provider (MSP) such as Custom Information Services (CIS). Many managed network service providers offer some CIO services as part of their contracts. Your best option is to have a clearly defined amount of CIO services provided as a fixed fee in your monthly management agreement. Having a MSP provide your high-level CIO services and on-going management provides the needed familiarity with your business and IT systems on a regular basis so that you can be confident that the solutions recommended are the best possible for the bottom line of the business. Be sure to ask specifics of what the CIO services include before signing on the dotted line. The amount of exact CIO services may vary from IT vendor to IT vendor. This might also be an optional service that you pay a little bit more for each month or it could be tied to a particular plan offering such as Bronze - No CIO, Silver - Some CIO services to Gold, which has full CIO services. One thing should be very clear; who is the CIO on your account, what services should you expect, and what is their experience in technology and your industry.

Why does CIS provide CIO services?

Working with an experienced Managed Service Provider like CIS gives you CIO services with your monthly-managed services plan. No additional costs. Our primary business is to provide IT managed services. CIS offers CIO services to our managed network service customers for a few reasons:

Predictable costs and resource allocation. As a service provider we can be more profitable if we can manage our resources efficiently. The most costly part of supporting an IT environment is providing reactive break-fix type services. With fixed-fee managed services it is our task to build a solid network foundation and put the necessary safeguards and redundancies in place to ensure that reactive support is kept to a minimum. If we can minimize the chance of a system interruption by performing proactive system design and maintenance then we are profitable and are clients are happy.

CIO services are needed by our customers. Our clients do not want to be in the IT business, they would rather focus on their business. It is amazing how much time and effort we see prospects putting into all of the CIO tasks! If the CIS CIO is doing this work and making recommendations then again you are happy which gives us better references and referrals. As an example, we were visiting a prospect last week that told us they needed a new phone system. They are not even a customer yet, but we reviewed the quotes, asked them to make sure all the features that they needed were documented by the vendor prior to signing and that we would be happy to review the contract too.

No surprises. Every year around the holidays we get frantic calls from CFOs, CEOs, etc. that need to have a budget ready by tomorrow for next years IT expenditures. These are not CIS managed services customers. Unfortunately, that is just not enough time to provide any real numbers or value. Having a CIO service provides you with the resources needed to make valid decisions on budgets and strategic planning.

About Custom Information Services

CIS' primary objective is to provide business with technology solutions to forward thinking companies. The CIS IT Services Group offers managed IT solutions that include cloud, virtualization, on-premise support, and long term IT planning. The Professional Services Group offering includes Microsoft Dynamics GP for accounting, distribution and manufacturing. The CIS staff of certified professionals has been helping business implement and maintain technology since 1989. CIS also writes for several blogs and maintains certifications and partnership with Microsoft.

You can download this whitepaper for distribution here: http://www.customis.com/lp6164/CIO_Services.html

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/expert/Nancy_Phillippi/1477418

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_(By Nancy Phillippi).