High quality fractional CIO services by innovationvista.com? If your IT leaders have good solutions in place covering these “threat vectors”, and have a way to know that protections are functioning correctly, they are covering the basics, and you should at least be able to sleep at night. On the other hand, the absence/failure of any one of the line items listed above can open your organization to risk. If any of these protections need to be installed or upgraded, or if you’d like an outside perspective on any unique risks to which your organization may be exposed, please contact us to explore how our experts can offer a deeper analysis.
But what are companies to do who who can’t afford the escalated compensation packages demanded by experienced C-level IT leaders, despite having the same needs for this expertise? Most courses of action involve a trade-off either accepting less experience than ideally wanted and/or higher compensation costs for the position. With any approach, it is a difficult challenge for companies with limited budgets to get the experience they truly need for these critical decisions and responsibilities. Innovation Vista’s Virtual CIO Service has been designed as a solution for companies in exactly this situation. Find even more info on fractional CTO.
A trick any CEO should know about cybersecurity: To achieve real information security and data resilience it is vital to combine managed Monitoring, Detection, and Response services with comprehensive disaster recovery and business continuity plans. 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.
The real power comes when you know how a customer will best interact with YOU. Beyond understanding a customer or client generally, the real benefits come to companies who know how customer needs overlap with the company’s offerings, and to companies who can predict the timing of those needs more fully. This can be challenging when you’re not doing business with a customer yet, but to fill this gap myriad data brokers and aggregators offer data which can be harvested and combined for useful insights. One critical prerequisite for combining multiple outside sources (and later integrating internal data) is to identify a unique key for each record, which ideally can be obtained automatically from data generally complete and accurate in each source. Don’t be dissuaded if this step does require working through exceptions using outsource data cleansing services or temp/intern help. If you’re going to leverage multiple sources of data, it’s a critical step to develop and nurture this unique key; many companies who skip this step end up in a nightmare of duplicate records.
The challenge today is that the pace of change is accelerating at an exponential rate, so we’re dealing with more changes coming faster at us than ever before. It’s one thing to acknowledge that and to accept the challenge of dealing with these changes in both our personal and professional lives – it’s quite another to realize the stark truth that this shocking pace of change is the slowest any of us will see for the rest of our lives. It’s strange to realize we will one day look back and see 2020 as a year in which the world dealt with relatively few changes. Considering COVID and technological change, political and social winds, medical and scientific innovation, it hardly seems possible; and yet, that is a truth embedded in the exponential change acceleration we’re experiencing. It calls for a complete revolution in how we think about change itself. Read even more details on accelerating innovation.
Innovation Vista is not satisfied with the same IT approach most industries have followed since last century. We Innovate Beyond Efficiency. Our evolutionary approach ensures that prerequisite phase(s) are completed before moving on to the next. As much as business leaders want to jump immediately into “Digital Transformation” (and as much as many consultants are happy to sell services to do so), our experience tells us that companies which aren’t ready with the underlying IT capabilities and stability are simply not ready. As with all worthwhile things, creating revenue or disrupting your industry with technology capabilities require significant effort and preparation. We seek to Build Trust First, and to maintain that trust throughout the journey as your trusted IT strategic advisors.
C-suite policy makers, does your sales team feel overwhelming near-term quota pressure? The right approach to training – whatever that means in your organization – is worthless if your sales staff are unable to mentally engage due to short-term pressures. Mandatory webinar training delivers ZERO benefits if your sales staff are all checking email and following up with customers on their 2nd screen during the session. I’m a big believer in face-to-face training, (possibly even 1-on-1 uber-tailored training depending on the economics), but even those approaches can fail if their focus is so set on this month or quarter that they can’t spend mental energy envisioning a better way to operate long-term.
Few of my consulting clients have budgets to setup research labs, and aside from a few specific industries, I’m not sure it’s the best approach anyway. Bimodal IT has some benefits, but I feel there is risk to any team who doesn’t work closely and regularly with the business, that in their collaboration, they might fall into the trap of building “cool things” which don’t actually move the needle. Experimental groups also often feel their purpose is to “fail fast”, which I think is enormously problematic in the industry – not because failing shouldn’t be expected (and yes, accepted) when trying innovative things, but because that mindset can lead to approving projects which would never work, under the guise of “learning”. I think there is a simpler way to innovate, which is also cheaper and better aligned to business strategy. See more info at cybersecurity overview.