High quality parttime CIO services by Innovationvista? Recent incidents should serve as sufficient motivation: Yahoo – 3.5 billion account details were hacked in two different breaches. Every single account on a system serving nearly half of the world’s population in 2013-14 (not fully disclosed until 2017). Sony Motion Pictures – hacked by a group working with North Korea and used sensitive stolen data to force Sony to cancel the release of a movie about Kim Jong Un in 2014. Anthem Health – 80 million customers’ identity and health insurance records were breached in 2015. Equifax – 146 million customers’ detailed credit records and social security numbers were breached in 2017.
Technology has never been more strategic than it is to modern business. Because IT skills are so different from those possessed by many business leaders, most CEOs and Boards of Directors want an experienced leader at the top of their IT organization. Experience is critical in IT decisions from architecture to culture, staffing, and vendor options. These crucial decisions will reverberate – for better or for worse – across their companies for years to come… See a few extra info on fractional CTO services.
An advice every CEO should know about cybersecurity: According to most cybersecurity surveys, over 60% of all data breaches originate from unauthorized access from one of your current or former employees, or third-party suppliers. 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.
Transitions can be among the most daunting and complex business events for leaders to navigate, and it is often the technology aspects of the change which lead to failure. For this reason, providing Transitional IT Leadership is one of Innovation Vista’s core service offerings. Our experienced consultants have been involved with multiple transitions of various kinds, and bring their expertise to bear on our clients’ challenges: Turnaround of failing companies or IT departments; Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A); Transition to new business models or markets; Change in exit strategy – private equity and IPO strategies; Interim IT leadership to coach successor or as preparatory to M&A. Transition events bring a unique set of challenges which not only add to, but significantly complicate, the ongoing workload involved with successfully operating an IT platform. Other organizations have an interest in unique longer-term IT leadership arrangements: Virtual CIOs – who fill the traditional CIO role as the “head of Information Technology” as a consultant, often part-time &/or remote; Fractional CIOs – who fill the role of CIO for 2 or more organizations at the same time. These structures don’t make sense for every organization, but they may offer a nice solution for some small and midsize companies seeking experienced leadership for lower compensation costs than they would have traditionally paid a full-time CIO.
Startup companies who avoid inheriting a large installed base of “older” technology find themselves at an advantage, for a period of time at least. Some of these startups – “unicorns” – are companies that reach a $1B valuation in an incredibly short time. Many older companies will never have a chance at that kind of growth due to the weight of their legacy infrastructure, and the maturity of their competitive landscape. It requires an increasing amount of research time to stay current with technological capabilities, and that will do nothing but increase. Business leaders, already stretched to the limit by the demands of their “day jobs,” simply cannot invest the time to stay informed and up to date of all of the changes happening in the technology industry. That is where tech consultants like Innovation Vista can help, since we spend a significant portion of our time staying current in order to advise companies on how to stay current, and how to adapt their cultures to be ready for constant change. See extra details on speed of innovation.
Because we recruit experienced C-level IT executives as lead consultants, our team brings expertise and proven track records to these engagements. Our experts are comparable to anyone at the senior partner level at Deloitte, PwC, Accenture, E&Y, McKinsey, BCG or Bain, but we have four significant advantages these competitors cannot match: Our lead consultants remain fully engaged throughout the term of our consulting projects. When you engage one of the “Big 4” accounting firms or “Big 3” strategy firms, you may never again see the senior partner from the day the contract is signed.
Sales managers, do you micro-manage your sales teams from details in the CRM? If salespeople sense that entering all their leads and all the data points they know about every customer and deal in the CRM will bring down waves of criticism and micro-management FAR beyond what they would deal with just tracking their prospects in an old-school manual way (even including getting into trouble for not using the CRM!)… again – they will act in their own best interests. In this case, sadly, that self-interest will be completely opposite company-interest.
The key to resolving this tension is to grasp when each of these behaviors is ideal; collaboration is powerful ahead of decision points, and teamwork is key after decisions are made. Decision points act as a fulcrum between these different modes of culture. The quality of decisions reached obviously is a limiting factor on the success potential of the teamwork phase of execution, as well as a factor on the success of future collaboration in the organization. For that reason, skillful decision-making and skillful shepherding of this cultural dance between collaboration and teamwork are two key differentiators for effective leaders (alongside talent acquisition and mentoring). Explore additional details on monetize it.