Virtual CIO
Quartet provides senior staff for technology/business integration and planning. Some of our services include:
- Develop IT budgets and set priorities,
- Host monthly advisory meetings with your management team,
- Create and maintain a long-term technology plan,
- Address staffing and vendor management issues,
- Business process re-engineering to take advantage of new technology,
- Asset planning (inventory management, obsolete equipment),
- New technology recommendations,
- RFP writing and negotiation,
- Project management,
- Custom software development management,
- Regulatory compliance.
Retainer or project based fees or both. This service is becoming increasingly popular, but is only available to clients with existing Quartet service contracts
Team Functions
| Function | CIO | CTO/IT Strategist | Director | Architect |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Focus | Looks outward from IT and works on the business; seeks to ensure IT supports and impacts the business |
Inwardly focused on IT; drives efficiency and effectiveness of internal processes and structure |
Day-to-day management and oversight of any aspect of IT | Technologically focussed; ensures right products and designs are selected and implemented |
| Usage in a Typical SMB | Recurring 1-4 days per month with extra days dependent upon budget cycles or special projects |
CTO: 2-5 days per month for smaller SMBs; 1-2 days per week.
Larger strategists work on an as-required basis for specific development |
Up to continuous engagement though usually 2-3 days per week; on an as-required basis for specific projects |
On an as-required basis depending upon the needs of the project or application |
Success Story:
We work with an insurance company (that we’ll refer to as ‘Insurance Company A’) that is associated with the independent national broker network. ‘Insurance Company A’ provides customized insurance solutions to faith organizations, retirement communities, education facilities, unique properties, registered charities and non-for profit organizations and select commercial enterprises. Since 2010, we have been providing ‘Insurance Company A’ virtual CIO and support services. We have successfully completed the following projects:
- System Centre Essentials 2010 Deployment – Server Monitoring recommendation from RFP response
- Firewall upgrades
- UPS Network Management
- Backup Upgrade & Windows Server Agent
- Server consolidation/Virtualization
- Replaced all Windows 2000 servers
- Prepared recommendations for MI infrastructure.
Through monthly advisory meetings, we continue to guide and consult ‘Insurance Company A’ with a number of their needs so they can perform their duties to their clients with ease. We have upgraded their servers to Windows 2012 from Windows 2003 and are constantly researching newer technologies to recommend that may be better equipped to address their needs. It is anticipated that within the next couple of years we will help integrate WatchDox, the new secure document sharing software by Blackberry which is also ideal for the transfer of sensitive files.
All of our recommendations are made after having thoroughly researched and established any system or environmental dependencies between the specific tech update and the organization’s technical environment. We do this through compliance reporting. This involves providing answers to Insurance Company A internal security audits, working through recommendations from computed external security audits and providing assistance in responding to OFiFC security questionnaires.
Quartet also develops annual IT budget and priorities reports as well as a secondary value for insurance asset reports that includes the projection of expected support costs for the coming year. These reports allow for us to create and maintain a long-term technology strategy to improve IT standardization. In keeping track of ‘Insurance Company A’s’ assets we have been able to determine how to integrate custom software development to fit to their needs.
Asgar, a Quartet employee has been deployed to ‘Insurance Company A’ to ensure more fluid communication between our companies. In addition, Asgar has been helpful in providing quick support and has allowed for a better coordination of projects.
In summary, through offering virtual CIO service, we take a broader view of our client and focus on business and IT alignment. We do this by maintaining the IT infrastructure, planning their technology roadmap and identifying opportunities to use new technology tools. Quartet and ‘Insurance Company A’ have been working together for over half a decade now and we are continuing to grow and evolve our role with them.