IT Consulting
Fractional CIO Services
A business of 20 to 200 people faces CIO-sized decisions with no CIO to make them: budgets, vendors, security posture, build versus buy. Fractional, sometimes called a vCIO, means you get the judgment without inventing the job.
The decisions are already happening. Technology money gets spent, vendors get chosen, and risk gets accepted, whether or not anybody senior is looking. Without an owner, those decisions get made by whoever answers the phone when a salesperson calls, and the total is defended by nobody. A fractional CIO gives them an owner: somebody on your side of the table who has heard every pitch before and reports to your leadership, not to a vendor.
The work is a standing seat, not a one-time report. A technology roadmap with dates and budget figures on it, reviewed with leadership on a schedule. Vendor and contract decisions weighed against the plan rather than against the demo. Security and continuity posture owned at the level where the board, the bank, and the insurer are asking about it, in language they can use.
Fractional means the hours match the need. Most businesses this size need a few hours of genuine CIO thinking a month and need it consistently, which is exactly the arrangement a full-time hire cannot be sized down to and a project engagement cannot be stretched into.
What this covers
- A technology roadmap with dates and budget figures, kept current and reviewed with leadership on a schedule.
- An annual technology budget you can defend line by line.
- Vendor selection and renewal decisions made by somebody who has heard every pitch before.
- Security, continuity, and compliance posture reported in board-level language.
- A recurring seat at your leadership meetings, sized in hours to what the business needs.
In their words
The up-time of our network and servers is critical to our day-to-day operations. Tech Dynamix has been an intricate piece of our business by providing us with prompt and reliable services. Tech Dynamix can always be counted on to be there when we need them.
Common questions
How is this different from the technology roadmap service?
The roadmap is a deliverable. A fractional CIO is the person who owns it afterward: attending the leadership meetings, adjusting the plan when the business changes, and making the calls that come up between reviews. Most fractional CIO engagements include the roadmap; not every roadmap needs the standing seat.
Do we need to be a managed services client?
No. The advice is worth having whoever runs your day-to-day support, and a fractional CIO who only ever recommends his own company's services is not giving advice, he is writing quotes. Where we do both, we tell you which hat we are wearing.
How many hours does it take?
It varies with the size and pace of the business, and it is agreed rather than open-ended. The common shape is a monthly leadership review plus availability between them, revisited quarterly so the hours track what is actually happening.
Part of IT Consulting & Advisory
A read on what you are running, what it costs you in total, and what to do about it in what order.