Get the right vCIO technology partner for your business – at completely manageable costs

With the evolution of technology starting to outpace time itself in the throes of Industry 4.0, you need a reliable technology partner. Your business deserves a CIO (Chief Information Officer) who can fully gauge the scope, capabilities and limitations of your infrastructure vis-à-vis your business goals (both long and short-term). This is where a CIO comes in incredibly handy for businesses as s/he can help roadmap the life expectancy of your existing IT infrastructure, help you build an effective and detailed IT budget that takes both your current and future business needs into account while ensuring peak operational efficiencies.

Perhaps most importantly, a CIO can help you navigate the rapid strides in technology happening all around you every day and help keep your business technology capacities forward-looking.

At the same time, CIOs (due to the unique and in-depth nature of their knowledge and skillsets) simply do not come cheap. Your business may not be able to afford a full-time CIO or simply be able to justify such a steep cost irrespective of the enormous value addition a full-time CIO can bring to your business. And this is where the proposition of highly flexible and deep knowledge services rendered by a virtual CIO, or a vCIO, becomes attractive.

In its essence, you get all the benefits of an in-house CIO with the deep domain expertise that comes with working for niche domains for decades with Managed IT Services Providers.

Did we mention the highly flexible packages and entry-level rates for the service yet?

If you are already engaging the services of a managed services provider or even thinking of engaging one, opting for the vCIO service should be a no-brainer. They serve as a dedicated technology liaison for your entire business and can serve as the sole POC for technology expertise across your business offerings.

The service is highly efficient at cutting through process complexity at organizations and is highly beneficial in reducing the effects of ‘tunnel vision’ that in-house employees often develop when dealing with infrastructure at a macro level. vCIOs are trained to be bring in the maximum of process efficiency in any infrastructure architecture and they always have their ‘budget cap’ on. Most importantly, they bring in fresh perspective and critical domain expertise honed over years, if not decades.

With all the value addition of vCIOs however, it is important to remember that not all vCIO services are created equal and you need to find the right Virtual CIO Services Los Angeles that suits the need of your organization. It is also crucial for your vCIO to have a healthy and productive relationship with your leadership teams, so be sure to check the chemistry before you sign on with a service.

vCIOs make great sense for small businesses just starting to flex their growing muscles. Small businesses simply do not have the scope to delineate their technology services and yet, unsurprisingly, have much of the same needs as large organizations. Opting for a vCIO service can serve a lot of these needs, including strategic and tactical advisory services, IT budgeting, infrastructure planning, project migrations, design, and implementation, ITSM and even take care of formulating and adhering to your IT policies and governance.

This last service, in particular, is fast becoming a core need with governments across states and regions tightening the noose around cyber policies and revising them at pace to keep up with evolving market and societal conditions.

Being the consulting branch of many of managed service providers, vCIOs are generally equipped with an expansive view of the technology landscape. This objective view is very beneficial in cutting through ‘organizational bubbles’ as well as having an intuitive ‘best match’ grasp over different technologies and the various core needs of different businesses.

Ideally, they are masterful at aligning technology solutions to your business objectives, and deploying IT solutions strategically to achieve real results in driving process efficiencies or cost advantages. Moreover, since they always keep an eye towards the evolution of technology at scale, you can always rely on them to futureproof your infrastructure investments and strategies as much as possible.

vCIOs play a highly strategic role in refining the efficiency of your IT processes, saving you considerable money both in terms of sunk and operational costs in running your infrastructure at peak efficiencies and ultimately, impacting your bottom line positively. You expect the vCIO to always act in the absolute best interest of your company and the results should show that.

Technical Reporting

vCIOs enable you to have both a broad and deep view of your organization’s infrastructure capabilities. Ideally, they should proactively reach out to you to make you aware of both the current status of your infrastructure as well as a macro perspective on the state of technology in the industry at large. These discussions should culminate in strategic steps to continue or pivot from the larger technological roadmap. This should cover:

Delineate your infrastructure objectives and build a roadmap for the future

Do you have a clear idea and an executable plan for the following?

• Intellectual property protection
• Disaster recovery
• Employee on-boarding
• Managing vendor relationships
• Keeping track of business application suites
• Cybersecurity training

If not, your vCIO should be able to help you out with these and more extensively.

Cost Savings

The true quality test of a vCIO comes up in regular meetings. Are they showing up with IT recommendations that simply do not sync with your budget, goals, or timings? Don’t waste your time with glorified sales calls, as any vCIO worth their salt should be saving you significant enough costs that you would be interested in making them stay!

Apex can help provide bespoke vCIO services for businesses that need Los Angeles IT Services. Apex has been a trusted vendor in the industry for decades and is known for always thinking ahead and driving custom-fit technology solutions that make a difference to your business.