Being a CIO is no easy task. With budget constraints on one side and technology needs on the other, many CIOs spend their days feeling firmly lodged between a rock and a hard place. In order to keep the IT department functioning optimally, CIOs need to make sure they have the right resources on hand to help them achieve their goals.
Many CIOs who have contracted with an IT consulting firm for help have said hiring a technology consultant is one of the best business decisions they ever made. Not only can a technology consultant help take some of the pressure off, but IT consulting services can also help companies save time and money by streamlining their processes and optimizing their technology.
A recent poll uncovered the top five things CIOs worry about. Here’s a look (in no particular order) at what those concerns are and how an IT consulting firm offering IT managed services can help.
1. Industry trends. Keeping up with the latest and greatest in IT innovations is difficult especially when budgets are tight. For one, it is costly to switch to new tools or platforms on the fly. Additionally, it seems that as soon as your company has finally settled in with a new tech innovation, another one emerges on the industry radar and creates a bunch of buzz and hype. A technology consultant can help CIOs prioritize which upgrades are necessary and which aren’t worth the money for your company.
2. Project management. Budgeting for IT projects can cause a lot of stress for a CIO if he or she is overburdened with too much work already and has little time to evaluate and follow up on project proposals. By outsourcing IT project management to an IT consulting firm – or by utilizing IT managed services to free up the CIO up for long-term projects – a company can reduce the CIO’s stress and workload.
3. Hardware and software. Keeping up with hardware and software upgrades is a constant concern for CIOs, and any time there is a major software addition or hardware innovation, additional concerns crop up. How much do we invest in cloud computing vs. in-house? Are these changes affordable? What’s the expected customer downtime, if any? How will employee productivity be affected? These are questions an IT consulting services provider can help answer, using a wealth of research and analytics.
4. Data security. A recent poll of 1,400 CIOs revealed that data security is their number-one concern. Security breaches, information leaks, viruses, hacking, corporate espionage and so on are all real concerns large corporations face. An IT consulting firm can help take some of these security worries off the CIOs plate – just make sure you find an IT consulting services provider you can trust.
5. Long hours. Many CIOs are overworked and stressed out due to long work weeks. The average CIO of a large company will work, on average, 65-70 hours a week. Add on top of that a family life and lack of personal time, and you can imagine how quickly an overworked CIO will burn out. While a 50-plus-hour work week is generally expected of a CIO, the real question is how many of those hours are spent doing things that could be done by a technology consultant. Contracting out for IT managed services can help maximize the CIO’s work week and help offload some of the pressure.
[ photo by: IvanWalsh.com ]
