Develop a Virtual CIO Service Offering
Elevate your IT service from trusted technology operator to strategic technology partner.
You are struggling to find valuable work. With so many businesses undergoing a fundamental transformation to meet an increasingly digital world, practitioners in the IT business space should be filled to the brim with work – and yet many are struggling to get that work.
- IT Consultants are constantly hunting for their next engagements.
- MSPs are challenged with being seen as anything more than custodians of the network and its systems.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
A Virtual CIO is still a CIO in form and function. They must perform this function in a way that is repeatable and scalable across a variety of clients. With a tight service definition and a clear execution plan, a virtual CIO can address client uniqueness within the engagement without customizing how the engagement is delivered.
- Virtual CIO is not just a label for a quarterly sales prospecting meeting. The virtual CIO is an acting chief information officer of the client’s organization. While there are changes in how the job is executed on a day-to-day basis, the full scope of what a CIO is responsible for is not reduced just because the resource is not full-time.
- While the functions of a CIO do not change in a fractional engagement, the approach to fractional delivery must. Your delivery needs to have a defined execution plan that includes success metrics, deliverables, and a schedule of set engagements. When your virtual CIOs deliver a consistent engagement structure to all their clients, it simplifies their delivery and can address more clients.
Impact and Result
The IT Leader's role is indeed well-defined, which leaves no reason why it can't be offered as a service. Our approach to this is the following:
- Use our research to determine the specific activities and deliverables needed to refine your virtual CIO offering.
- Standardize these activities and deliverables in order to scale the delivery and make it easier to sell.
Develop a Virtual CIO Service Offering
Elevate your IT service from trusted technology operator to strategic technology partner.
Analyst Perspective
Traditional IT services and support are a commodity, but advisory services are differentiating and in demand!
In the last decade, we’ve seen a surge in technology service providers (TSPs) offering advisory services of various forms. These advisory services, often under the moniker of “virtual CIO/CTO” or “fractional CIO/CTO,” are at times bundled into more traditional TSP offerings such as managed IT services and support, but pure-play virtual CIOs exist as well. It’s a bit like the Wild West – but what do you expect in an unregulated professional services industry?
This flexibility is exciting for TSPs because it presents the opportunity to define the service offering and differentiate themselves from their competitors. On the other hand, without normalization, TSPs are challenged with making this high-value, high-touch service offering a profitable endeavor.
The challenges are many. Too many inclusions make the offering broad and difficult to execute, and it’s difficult to deliver consistently and scale across multiple clients because they are, each one of them, unique.
So maybe there’s something to be learned from the regulated professional services firms. Lawyers and accountants are examples of outsourced firms delivering professional services in a consistent manner, scaled across multiple clients. They do this through a tight definition of their function and with a clear execution plan that the client agrees to.
Contained within this research is a way to define the function of a virtual CIO and create an engagement that is consistent for you while addressing the uniqueness of each of your prospects.
 | Fred Chagnon Principal Research Director Consulting & Technology Service Provider Industry Info-Tech Research Group |
Executive Summary
| Your Challenge You are struggling to find valuable work. With so many businesses undergoing a fundamental transformation to meet an increasingly digital world, practitioners in the IT business space should be filled to the brim with work -- and yet many are struggling to get that work. IT Consultants are constantly hunting for their next engagements. MSPs are challenged with being seen as anything more than custodians of the network and its systems. | Common Obstacles vCIO is often seen as the savior. The prospect of a Virtual CIO (vCIO) seems to answer most of these challenges. It provides a retained engagement that allows MSPs and consultants alike to meet their customers at a strategic advisory level. But this is brave new ground and comes with its own obstacles: Lack of a vCIO definition: The concept of "vCIO" is new and not well defined. Non-standard approach: Many delivering vCIO are flying by the seat of their pants. There is no standard cadence, and there are no standard deliverables. | Info-Tech’s Approach The IT Leader's role is indeed well-defined, which leaves no reason why it can't be offered as a service. Our approach to this is the following: Use our research to determine the specific activities and deliverables needed to refine your virtual CIO offering. Standardize these activities and deliverables to scale the delivery and make it easier to sell. |
Info-Tech Insight
A Virtual CIO is still a CIO in form and function. They must, however, perform this function in a way that is repeatable and scalable across a variety of clients. With a tight service definition and a clear execution plan, a virtual CIO can address client uniqueness within the engagement without customizing how the engagement is delivered.
What is a Virtual CIO?“When you need legal advice, you go to a law firm. When you need financial and tax guidance, you go to a CPA. These are practices that have been generally accepted as fractional services. Similarly, when a company needs periodic guidance and governance in information technology and cybersecurity, that’s the sort of guidance we provide.” (Source: Tech Insights Podcast) | A technology-focused executive advisor delivered as a fractional serviceVirtual CIO
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Virtual CIO is an opportunity for all IT service providers
Benefits for managed service providers (MSPs)
| Benefits for IT consulting firms
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A virtual CIO is, first and foremost, a trusted advisor. While a virtual CIO engagement can be a great way to discover opportunities to sell additional products and services, always be up-front with your clients about how you’re being renumerated. This transparency will preserve and possibly even build trust.
Many Info-Tech members have reported aggressive sales tactics from their IT service providers, disguised as “virtual CIO consultations.” Our advice to these members is to avoid any advisory engagement where the advisors have their own commercial targets. This puts their function as client advisors in direct conflict with their incentive to solicit products and services.
About Info-Tech
Info-Tech Research Group is the world’s fastest-growing information technology research and advisory company, proudly serving over 30,000 IT professionals.
We produce unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. We partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.
What Is a Blueprint?
A blueprint is designed to be a roadmap, containing a methodology and the tools and templates you need to solve your IT problems.
Each blueprint can be accompanied by a Guided Implementation that provides you access to our world-class analysts to help you get through the project.
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Get the help you need in this 3-phase advisory process. You'll receive 7 touchpoints with our researchers, all included in your membership.
Guided Implementation 1: Introduction
- Call 1: Scope requirements, objectives, and your specific challenges
Guided Implementation 2: Decide on the Scope of Your Virtual CIO Engagement
- Call 1: Assess your Virtual CIO capability
- Call 2: Service Design: Problem space
- Call 3: Service Design: Solution space
Guided Implementation 3: Fully Describe Your Virtual CIO Engagement
- Call 1: Service Definition: Activities and Deliverables
- Call 2: Service Definition: Standardized Approach
- Call 3: Document the Service Description
Contributors
- Kishor Bagul, Founder, Executive Advisor, eCXO, Cloud and Things Inc.
- Michael Ball, Founder, Team CISO
- Tara Bartels, Team Lead, Strategy Consulting, Dataprise
- Rick Bawcum, Founder & CEO, Cimatri
- Chris Bedel, President & CEO, Bedel Security
- Troy Cheeseman, Practice Lead, Infrastructure Research, Info-Tech Research Group
- Iain Gardner, Director & Principle Consultant, Dataflux (Pty) Ltd
- Matt Giarratani, Senior Vice President & CISO, Win Win Consulting LLC
- John Halliday, Technology Governance Specialist, Freelance
- Brian Jackson, Research Director, CIO Practice, Info-Tech Research Group
- Alvin McBorrough, Founder & Managing Partner, OCx Consulting
- Ken Muir, vCISO, LCM Security Inc.
- Myles Olsen, CRO, Managed Services Platform
- Denes Purnhauser, Founder & Executive Board member, Managed Services Platform
- Andrew Reese, Trusted Advisor & vCISO, ReeseWeb LLC.
- Carlota Sage, CEO & Principal Consultant, Tulle Software & Services LLC.
- Alan VanTassel, Executive Vice-President, Stored Technology Solutions Inc.
- Adam Walter, Founder & Co-Owner, Virtual-C Inc.
- Scott Young, Principal Research Director, Infrastructure, Info-Tech Research Group