Small-sized businesses are mainly managed by one person, the owner of the company. He or she is in charge of all the executive functions of the company, including Human Resources, Finance, Technology, and Sales, etc. When your company starts to grow in size and scale then handling all of these roles can get a little tricky. In other words, running the company alone becomes a bit of a challenge for the business owner.
At this time, organizations choose to hire subject matter experts to supervise each of these roles. Basically, the amount of work is beyond the capacity of the CEO alone, but not enough to justify a full-time hire. So, the best course of action for the organization is to bring in a ‘fractional’ CXO (Chief Experience Officer). In this position, the senior executive supports several organizations for a specific number of hours a week. You pay a tiny amount for the role’s time and, in turn, pay just a fraction of the cost.
A PEO (professional employment organization) may be hired to oversee HR, a fractional CFO to oversee bookkeeping. And a fractional CIO (Chief Information Officer) to oversee IT.
Typically, the cost of a full-time CIO doesn’t seem feasible for a small business. But, with digital technology dominating the marketplace, any business owner can see that technology is contributing greatly to staying competitive and being profitable. Hiring fractional CIO services seems like a good idea after all.
Why Hiring A Fractional CIO Is the Right Decision?
There can be any number of justifications of hiring a fractional CIO for business owners.
- The foremost justification to hire a fractional CIO is to support you in creating a road map for the future. As your business expands, it gets more and more difficult to keep up with the changes in sales, administration, and finance departments. A competent fractional CIO assures to keep IT systems and processes in alignment to maintain the momentum of your business’s growth.
- The second most important justification is that they’ll help harmonize all the systems to keep the key functions of your business working together. For example, an efficient onboarding system enables HR to offer new employees a thrilling debut experience with your organization. A proper off-boarding system will ensure the safety of your company’s data when employees exit the organization.
- A competent fractional CIO will furthermore keep watching the changes happening in your industry in relation to IT. Most leaders in the manufacturing sector are positive about implementing IoT (internet of things) in their IT infrastructure, but have little knowledge of where to start or how it may impact their business.
- The leaders in the healthcare and finance sectors know that compliance and security are critical parts of their organization. But with complicated regulatory specifications and endless tools in the marketplace. Most leaders cannot decide which is the best way to submit or review a request for proposal to solve their challenges. The fractional CIO services can be used to manage both of these projects. Moreover, they’ll be well-connected within the industry to help out with any areas where they may be weak from a knowledge perspective.
Fractional CIO and IT Support Are Separate Roles
A fractional CIO is not meant to play the role of IT technical support. It is better to leave the role to your in-house IT team or your outsourced IT services provider. On some occasions, your outsourced IT provider may provide a fractional CIO to oversee your organization. But that person is separate from the team delivering technical support.
There may be numerous reasons for this, but mainly, it is hard to play both roles exceedingly well at the same time. A fractional CIO’s main focus should be on the big picture of technology in your company. An IT support team should be paying attention to the day-to-day operations to make sure your technology is working correctly.
The Sum Up
Access to an experienced fractional CIO who can work closely with your organization to plan and manage your technology doesn’t have to be unaffordable for small and mid-size businesses. To sum up, hiring competent fractional CIO services can go a long way in integrating digital transformation into your organization without breaking the bank.
