What Does a vCIO Do?

The vCIO works collaboratively with clients to advise IT departments. Virtual CIOs perform the exact same functions as a conventional CIO, but with additional benefits and less cost and risk. Those functions include formulating strategic IT goals, planning an IT budget, analyzing and reworking business processes, and facilitating changes in information technology. The vCIO can help customers maintain their IT infrastructure to keep things running smoothly, or they can suggest and implement modern upgrades to help infrastructure grow for the future. For example, a vCIO can work with a client to plan an Infrastructure Technology Roadmap that identifies opportunities to use new technology tools. If a client lacks an internal IT department or has a very limited IT staff, the client may grant the authority to make decisions and overall technology deployment responsibilities to the vCIO of their choosing. The main difference between the vCIO function and other advisory and consultative solutions is that a virtual CIO takes a broader view of the client by focusing on the alignment between business and IT.