CTMS Ohio
  • Dealership Compliance
  • Our Solutions
    • Cyber Solutions
      • Cybersecurity
      • Backup and Disaster Recovery
      • Network Management
      • Mobile Management
    • Cloud Solutions
      • Cloud Migrations
      • Cloud Hosting
      • Office 365
    • Managed Services
      • IT Consulting
      • Remote Helpdesk Services
      • Virtual CIO Services
    • Business Phones
      • Hosted VOIP
      • Contact Center Services
  • Electronic Titles
  • About Us
    • Areas We Serve
      • Nashville
    • Our Team
    • Blog
    • Industries
      • Automotive
      • Government
      • Healthcare
      • Small and Medium Sized Businesses
      • Nonprofits
      • Legal Firms
      • Manufacturing
      • Professional Services
  • Contact
  • Remote Help
  • Submit Ticket
  • Payments
  • 844.286.7644
  • Menu Menu

Do I Need a Fractional or Virtual CIO?

If you know that hiring a chief information officer (CIO) is the key to your business’s managed service needs, but you’re not sure what type of CIO best fits your business objectives, keep reading.

This guide will help you identify:

  1. The different types of CIO – fractional and virtual CIO
  2. What each CIO type does and how it impacts your business
  3. The benefits each type has on your business
  4. CIO as a Service and why it’s the right option for your businessH2 Heading Topic Four

What Your Company Gains From an External CIO

Having a full-time CIO can become a financial and logistic strain for many organizations, especially if they’re a small or medium-sized business. A traditional CIO’s expertise comes with salary and benefit requirements that can become costly, especially when their consulting service isn’t always necessary.

While the role of chief information officer is incredibly important for visualizing a company’s information technology strategy, their expertise can quickly reach its limits when disaster occurs. Because they’ve been involved with a company for so long, for example, their vision may become short-sighted in a way that wouldn’t be the case for an outsourced CIO.
As a cost-effective solution for a company with limited resources, hiring an externally sourced CIO that can offer an organization critical strategic planning is a positive step forward in meeting business goals. Before locating a technical advisory service, a responsible business leader should be familiar with the types of CIO.

The Two Types of CIO

If you’ve been introduced to the world of managed services, you may have heard the term virtual CIO (vCIO) used quite often. Virtual CIOs are mentioned so frequently in the IT world that one might think they’re the only kind of externally sourced CIO, but this isn’t necessarily the case. In addition to virtual CIOs, businesses can seek services from fractional CIOs.

What Is a Fractional CIO?

Fractional CIOs are providers that bring part-time or on-demand CIO services to companies that lack a CIO. People who serve in this role provide the same standard duties as any chief information officer, but with a few differences from other technical advisory services. Fractional CIOs operate outside the traditional functions that managed service providers (MSPs) set up, where they earn commission on products and services they sell by the original equipment manufacturer.

Instead, fractional CIOs eliminate bias by being solely paid by the clients that hire them. In other words, when your business services a fractional CIO, you can expect objective advice that looks at your business’s unique needs and provides the relevant technology to further assist your business processes.

How You Benefit From Fractional CIO

If you hire a fractional CIO, your organization can expect to reap the benefits of:

  • Having an expert who has likely served in a CIO role previously or has the equivalent years of strategic management experience
  • Effective vendor management, which includes all the vendors in your technology portfolio
  • A well-designed IT organization—whether that’s an in-house team or a hybrid model
  • Built-in mentoring for your junior-level staff members
  • A level of transparency with vendors your other CIO services would not provide
  • Comfort in making sound technical decisions with the support of an objective and unbiased source

Virtual CIOs

A virtual chief information officer (vCIO) is a type of externally hired CIO that takes on a short-term, contracted role. Much like a regular CIO, virtual CIOs assume the duties of overseeing every facet of an organization’s information technology processes to better support the company’s long-term goals.

The expertise that these professionals offer is very similar to a traditional CIO, like assisting with planning the IT budget, making authoritative decisions, and reworking business practices, but in a much more efficient and cost-effective manner. They can also advise companies on the type of hardware, software, and services the client should invest in.

A key difference between a vCIO and other types of outsourced CIOs is that virtual CIOs tend to take a broader approach to IT services, while others focus on technology service delivery.

Additionally, virtual CIOs operate remotely, while other technology advisory services like fractional CIOs tend to provide IT leadership in person.

The Benefits of Virtual CIO

Having the oversight of a vCIO can reward an organization in multiple ways:

  • A virtual CIO guarantees better control of your company’s IT infrastructure.
  • Small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) can afford greater access to useful expertise.
  • Your business can avoid the hassle of the costly benefits package a traditional CIO would require.
  • You guarantee a fresher perspective and more innovative ideas for handling your company’s IT issues.
  • Having a virtual CIO can help you bypass the extensive long-term hiring and onboarding process.

It’s time your business started receiving the groundbreaking IT strategy only a chief information officer can provide. See how taking advantage of a virtual CIO from Computer Technology Management Services can set your organization up with network management and cloud services to take your business to its highest potential.

CIO as a Service and Why It Benefits You

Regardless of the type of technology advisory service you believe can best serve your business, your company could use the assistance of a qualified chief information officer. When you invest in CIO as a Service, you grant your company a strategic IT partner that assists you at any time, whether long term or short term.

Having a dedicated CIO consultant through CIO as a Service can benefit any organization, regardless of size. Because the individual in this role is a master at aligning IT requirements with your business’s strategic plans and technology trends, they can easily lead your organization to success within the confines of your company’s resources.

CTMS Guarantees Stability With Managed IT Services

Looking for a place to start when it comes to finding a suitable technology advisory service? Computer Technology Management Services offers IT consulting, remote help desk services, and virtual CIO services.

Contact Us

Share This Post

  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on LinkedIn
  • Share on Reddit
  • Share by Mail

Related Postings

Image of a person walking through a data center with a laptop.

Public vs Private vs Hybrid Cloud

CLOUD SERVICES
Read more
March 21, 2023
https://www.ctmsit.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Image-of-a-person-walking-through-a-data-center-with-a-laptop..jpg 1250 2000 AbstraktMarketing https://www.ctmsit.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/CTMS-tagline-black.png AbstraktMarketing2023-03-21 09:00:002023-03-14 13:53:25Public vs Private vs Hybrid Cloud
Image of business people discussing in a meeting while using a laptop.

How to set Strategic Goals for yo...

Managed Services/VCIO
Read more
March 16, 2023
https://www.ctmsit.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Image-of-business-people-discussing-in-a-meeting-while-using-a-laptop..jpg 1250 2000 AbstraktMarketing https://www.ctmsit.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/CTMS-tagline-black.png AbstraktMarketing2023-03-16 09:00:002023-03-14 13:30:25How to set Strategic Goals for yo...
Image of a business person talking on their computer.

Why do you need a VCIO?

Managed Services/VCIO
Read more
March 2, 2023
https://www.ctmsit.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Image-of-a-business-person-talking-on-their-computer..jpg 1250 2000 AbstraktMarketing https://www.ctmsit.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/CTMS-tagline-black.png AbstraktMarketing2023-03-02 09:00:002023-02-28 23:36:20Why do you need a VCIO?

Categories

  • Auto Industry IT
  • BUSINESS PHONES
  • CLOUD SERVICES
  • CYBER SOLUTIONS
  • Cybersecurity
  • E-TITLES
  • Education IT Solutions
  • Hosted VOIP
  • IT SOLUTIONS
  • IT Support
  • Managed Services/VCIO
  • Remote Working Technology
  • SOFTWARE
  • Uncategorized

Contact Us

"*" indicates required fields

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

About Us

Computer Technology Management Services (CTMS) supports organizations nationwide with high-quality, customizable business IT tools and cybersecurity strategies for dealerships and more.

What We Do

Cybersolutions
Cloud Solutions
Managed Services
Business Phones
Dealership Compliance
Electronic Titles

Contact Us

231 Springside Drive, Suite 200
Akron, OH 44333

24/7 Hotline and Business Contact: 844-286-7644

 

Website by Abstrakt Marketing Group © 2022
  • Privacy Policy
  • Sitemap
  • Linkedin
  • Facebook
Scroll to top

This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies.

OKLearn more

Cookie and Privacy Settings



How we use cookies

We may request cookies to be set on your device. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us, to enrich your user experience, and to customize your relationship with our website.

Click on the different category headings to find out more. You can also change some of your preferences. Note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer.

Essential Website Cookies

These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features.

Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, refusing them will have impact how our site functions. You always can block or delete cookies by changing your browser settings and force blocking all cookies on this website. But this will always prompt you to accept/refuse cookies when revisiting our site.

We fully respect if you want to refuse cookies but to avoid asking you again and again kindly allow us to store a cookie for that. You are free to opt out any time or opt in for other cookies to get a better experience. If you refuse cookies we will remove all set cookies in our domain.

We provide you with a list of stored cookies on your computer in our domain so you can check what we stored. Due to security reasons we are not able to show or modify cookies from other domains. You can check these in your browser security settings.

Other external services

We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps, and external Video providers. Since these providers may collect personal data like your IP address we allow you to block them here. Please be aware that this might heavily reduce the functionality and appearance of our site. Changes will take effect once you reload the page.

Google Webfont Settings:

Google Map Settings:

Google reCaptcha Settings:

Vimeo and Youtube video embeds:

Accept settingsHide notification only
CTMS Support

Need Support Now?

Click here to reach our world class support.