CIOs aren't simply CIOs. They come in many flavours. Wikipedia lists four: plain vanilla CIO, the one we all know and love. The guy, or gal, whose full time job is looking after an organisation's IT systems and, increasingly, looking forward to what role IT should play in helping an organisation achieve its goals.
"Fractional CIOs differ from traditional CIOs in that they serve as a working member of a company's executive management team as a contractor and may or may not serve on the company's board of directors," says Wikipedia.
It elaborates: "A fractional CIO, also known as a part-time CIO, or CIO on-demand is an experienced, multi-faceted professional who serves as the part-time chief information officer of a small or medium-sized business that otherwise could not afford or would not need a full-time executive to hold the position of chief information officer."
A virtual CIO, on the other hand "may have a similar role but the term virtual suggests that the individual is not present in the organisation on the same basis as an employed executive."
Wrong! The term virtual suggests that the CIO, as a person, does not exist. It also suggests that the virtual CIO, like the fractional CIO is not fully available to the company. In fact, virtual CIO is a service, such as that provided by Microwire, in which the functions normally provided by a CIO are provided by an external organisation.
For a small organisation a virtual CIO service has a number of advantages: backup and redundancy, for example. Providers of virtual CIO services don't take sick days and holidays; they don't have family emergencies.
Also, organisations get the benefits of a level of expertise that they probably could not afford for an in-house role. And of course, they're not paying a full time salary, plus all the on-costs, for what may not really be a full-time role: the virtual CIO service can be tailored to the normal requirements, and ramped up when needed, for example in the event of a major systems upgrade.
There's nothing 'fractional' about that.
Your complete VoIP and I.T solutions company
Microwire helps your business grow. When outsourcing the management of your key IT resources to Microwire, we look upon this as a partnership. Our dedication and professional approach ensures we are effectively your IT department. By optimizing your network environment, it will work at the peak efficiency and reliability levels that your business demands, freeing you to remain focussed on managing your business, not your IT environment.
Find out more now
Click for more news on Outsourced IT Services
innovation consultant, Really I enjoy your site with effective and useful information. It is included very nice post with a lot of our resources.thanks for share. i enjoy this post.
ReplyDelete