Top parttime CIO services by innovationvista.com? If your IT leaders have good solutions in place covering these “threat vectors”, and have a way to know that protections are functioning correctly, they are covering the basics, and you should at least be able to sleep at night. On the other hand, the absence/failure of any one of the line items listed above can open your organization to risk. If any of these protections need to be installed or upgraded, or if you’d like an outside perspective on any unique risks to which your organization may be exposed, please contact us to explore how our experts can offer a deeper analysis.
Our Virtual CIO Service Brings You the Tech Expertise and Leadership You Need, at a Price You Can Afford Discover more details at parttime CIO.
A trick any CEO should know about cybersecurity: Achieving information security compliance with one or more government regulatory standards for information security (i.e. ISO 27001, NIST 800-171, HIPAA, NYDFS, etc.) is good, but not sufficient to ensure real cybersecurity. Historically, cybersecurity has been an area that is housed solely in the technology department of a company, whether that consists of one or twenty employees. But more and more executives are understanding the importance of being not only knowledgeable but also involved in the conversations and decision-making process when it comes to protecting their data.
The real power comes when you know how a customer will best interact with YOU. Beyond understanding a customer or client generally, the real benefits come to companies who know how customer needs overlap with the company’s offerings, and to companies who can predict the timing of those needs more fully. This can be challenging when you’re not doing business with a customer yet, but to fill this gap myriad data brokers and aggregators offer data which can be harvested and combined for useful insights. One critical prerequisite for combining multiple outside sources (and later integrating internal data) is to identify a unique key for each record, which ideally can be obtained automatically from data generally complete and accurate in each source. Don’t be dissuaded if this step does require working through exceptions using outsource data cleansing services or temp/intern help. If you’re going to leverage multiple sources of data, it’s a critical step to develop and nurture this unique key; many companies who skip this step end up in a nightmare of duplicate records.
Leadership’s Mindset about Change is Key for Survival and Success: Much of success in this age of accelerating change will come from how leaders frame the challenge for their organizations. We suggest embracing it, and designing in a regular assessment and redirection of strategy to their business as a “heartbeat”. Avoiding the perception of change and innovation as an “interruption” to business, and encouraging it as an ongoing opportunity for them to jump (and stay) ahead of the competition. Read even more info on interim CTO.
We target our services at midsize companies. If you’re a company of this size (< $5B in annual sales), you will not likely see engagement with senior consultants or receive quality staff assigned from one of the Big 4 or Big 3. For each engagement we seek the best consultant match based on the client’s situational needs and the consultant’s industry and leadership expertise. If this approach intrigues you, please contact us to setup an initial conversation.
C-suite policy makers, does your sales team feel overwhelming near-term quota pressure? The right approach to training – whatever that means in your organization – is worthless if your sales staff are unable to mentally engage due to short-term pressures. Mandatory webinar training delivers ZERO benefits if your sales staff are all checking email and following up with customers on their 2nd screen during the session. I’m a big believer in face-to-face training, (possibly even 1-on-1 uber-tailored training depending on the economics), but even those approaches can fail if their focus is so set on this month or quarter that they can’t spend mental energy envisioning a better way to operate long-term.
When it comes to execution, team bandwidth will be more of a limitation. Given the economics behind the project(s) which “make the cut”, it will make sense to get them done as soon as possible. Consulting resources are the most common solution, either in staff augmentation or full outsourcing. If you can spare the leadership to oversee it, staff augmentation is a good model which also enables you to allocate as many in-house resources as possible to the project, for continuity of the vision and after its launch. Staff augmentation can be used not just for key project skill-sets, but also to back-fill temporarily for employees allocated to the project. If you really need a turn-key execution by a team already formed, there are many firms offering outsourced project services (pro tip: find a way to involve staff members as much as possible along the project timeline, and not just for a handoff at the end.) See a few more details at security checklist for CEOs.
