Best parttime CTO services by innovationvista.com? Digital transformation should not be feared, but fully explored – and where appropriate, embraced. Technological advancements have risen in recent years with the promise of improving operations for businesses in nearly all industries. They help businesses achieve a higher level of success that would otherwise be possible. CXOs need to know that their organizations may be left behind if they choose to allow their anxieties to stand in the way of digital transformation. Executives who allow their businesses to evolve with technology will make great strides, while those who don’t will lag behind. This process is inexorable, although it is occurring at different speeds in different industries.
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… Read even more details on parttime CIO.
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. It is vital that CEOs establish the appropriate cybersecurity “tone at the top” for their respective organization, regarding the importance of information security and how cybersecurity is everyone’s shared responsibility in a truly digital world. Establishing an organizational “culture of cybersecurity” has proven to be one of the best defenses against cyber adversaries. It is the people, not the technology, which can either be an organization’s greatest defense, or its weakest link against a cyber-attack.
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.
This succinct summary of the challenge of modern life is a quote from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, from his keynote at the Davos World Economic Forum in 2018. And although that organization tried to downplay the sentiment later that year, Trudeau’s claim seems an accurate summary of our times. Change is hard for human beings; we are accustomed to a great deal of consistency from one day to another: in what is expected of us, in the tools we use to perform those duties, in how we’re perceived by others and how we interact with others, in what constitutes the necessities of life, and in how we obtain those necessities. Most of us feel we can “handle” change, but when we say that we usually mean one change at a time, and with a pause after each change before we’re forced to confront the next one. Read a few extra details at pace of change.
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.
IT and Training have to do their part. Of course, the tech CRM implementation team have to do their job well! Streamlining configurations, aligning terminology and workflow to your organization, accurately mapping and loading all the historical data they can get their hands on, developing an optimized training plan with consideration for different user personas and needs – all these aspects of the CRM launch are important. A poorly designed CRM, or one which with insufficient training, will struggle for adoption even if all the intangible cultural strengths are in place. We look at these aspects of a CRM implementation in our assessments…
Innovation isn’t a Task to Check off – it’s the Outgrowth of a Culture of Collaboration and Teamwork: Innovation is like mom and apple pie; ask for a show of hands of who likes and wants it, and few hands will stay down. If it were a matter of choosing it, everyone would be doing it. So why is real innovation so rare? Because it depends completely on the most difficult challenge of workplace alchemy that leaders face – Culture. Without a culture of Collaboration, innovative ideas will stay locked in staff’s brains, or they’ll get put on a backlog list which never sees the light of day. Without a culture of Teamwork, new ways of operating will fail due to technical or political hurdles which are only surmountable as a team. And complicating all of this even further is the fact that, when it comes down to it, these two concepts have an in-built friction. Read even more details at culture of innovation.