Retained-CIO
The SMECIO Retained-CIO Service
Typically at SMECIO - a common scenario
is for an organization to engage the services of a SMECIO Retained-CIO
for 1-2 days a week for 6-12 months, with a reduced work load
thereafter to keep things running smoothly. Your SMECIO Retained-CIO
will oversee a large variety of strategic, tactical and technical
issues that may or may not include the following as part of the
engagement:
- Strategic Planning
To develop and implement a realistic growth strategy that leverages technology to help your company become a high-performance business. Develop a big picture that realistically defines your information network as a strategic business tool to give your organization a competitive advantage. To provide input and feedback to the overall business strategy and decision making process.
- Rationalizing and Managing Your I.T. Budget
Understand which I.T. investments make business sense. Recommend models for Total Cost of Ownership, Return on Investment and Risk Management that relate to your short-term and long-term business strategy. Define an I.T. budget that supports business growth, and manage the budget in step with actual business results and perceived opportunities.
- Business Process Improvement and Re-Engineering (BPI/BPR)
Analyze current work flows and processes within your business and between your business and outside organizations. Use information technology to help you improve or redesign business processes in order to enhance collaboration with suppliers, partners and customers to maximize performance and achieve your business goals more quickly.
- Data Analysis
Conduct data analysis to identify product trends in sales and consequently help focus technology marketing efforts towards more profitable products.
- Contract and Vendor Negotiations
Qualify vendors and evaluate products and services that support your business objectives and are in line with your I.T. budget. Negotiate contracts to maximize the business impact of your budgeted I.T. investments and to meet cash flow requirements. Monitor product performance guarantees, service level agreements, and special upgrade opportunities.
- I.T. Security
Define a complete security strategy that covers security policies and procedures, a secure I.T. infrastructure, security monitoring and virus protection software for local and remote users, regular security patches, and emergency response plans for security breaches.
- In-House Training
Create and develop a series of training and coaching methods for the internal I.T. staff.
- Data Center Management
Design a robust data center for web-based e-commerce, management information, corporate intranets, or mission-critical application servers. Establish procedures to keep critical applications current and deploy software that reduces costs by automating management tasks and consolidating information. Define required backup and restore procedures.
- Network Management
Design a secure, cost-effective network framework that provides the performance, availability and expandability required to support your business objectives. Provide telecommuters and mobile workers with fast, reliable and secure connections. Use appropriate network monitoring software to anticipate problems, identify bottlenecks, and track usage.
- Desktop Management
Develop a comprehensive plan for desktop management that includes procedures for adding, moving and changing computers, help desk services, asset tracking, software revision control, configuration standards, automated management software, and support for mobile devices such as notebooks, PDAs and wireless products.
- Disaster Recovery
Create a disaster recovery plan that includes analyzing the vulnerability of your network infrastructure and critical data, addresses disaster scenarios such as hardware failure, natural catastrophes or hacker attacks, defines backup procedures and backup system validation, describes an effective and affordable power backup system, specifies virus protection software, incorporates an appropriate level of system redundancy, and proposes off-site backup and recovery procedures.
"... SMECIO not only exhibited a vast knowledge of in I.T. infrastructure requirements, they displayed excellent problem solving abilities in an autonomous environment."
"... has gone above and beyond the original
scope of his original engagement to assist with any required
modifications in a timely manner. The management and myself have been
completely satisfied with the quality of his work."
"Roy gave us an honest, independent angle for our project as the bridge between management and the technical team. Definitely someone that we could rely on."