Many SMBs are coming to the conclusion that digital transformation is a necessary step for their company to remain competitive, but have budgetary concerns regarding their IT investment.
Consultancy services from Diligence bring you independence for your strategic and tactical needs of your businesses IT.
While your Managed Service Provider (MSP) runs your day to day operations, our services focus on strategic and tactical planning, risk management and decision making.
Diligence can provide services in two main areas, providing focused expertise and independence from your MSP, ensuring that decisions are made to benefit the client.
A vCIO is a dedicated resource who serves as your Chief Information Officer on a flexible basis. The primary role of a vCIO is to formulate strategic IT goals for your company, and then manage an IT strategy and budget that meets those goals.
The difference between your MSP and the vCIO is that the vCIO takes a broader view, focusing on business and IT alignment. More conventional third-party IT advisory services, such as managed service providers (MSP), typically focus on technology service delivery.
Virtual CIOs offer the efficiency, flexibility and expertise businesses need to improve long-term IT strategy at a more manageable price point, compared to hiring a traditional full-time CIO.
The vCIO collaborates with and advises clients' IT departments/MSP and performs the same functions as a conventional CIO would. These duties include formulating strategic IT goals, working with finance to plan the IT budget, analysing and reworking business processes and facilitating technology changes.
We focus on forward-looking services, such as developing long-term strategic IT goals and identifying opportunities to drive innovation, as well as business success and revenue. We also offer audit/assurance services to ensure your contracts and Service Level agreements are being upheld.
As part of the vCIO’s service we have direct communication with all senior stakeholders and host quarterly (at least) meetings in order to assess, reflect, and take action on the changing goals of your organisation.
A roadmap is an essential part of what makes a vCIO an integral part of your business’ digital transformation moving forward. We build a roadmap for your technology which takes into consideration your business goals, budgets, timelines and key deliverables. This helps determine the direction and prospective implementations for your organisation.
There are six main ways our vCIO can provide value:
1. Help set strategic priorities, key initiatives, and identify ROI
2. Provide methods and processes to drive change
3. Offer input on regulatory and compliance matters
4. Evaluate current team skills and alignment (including offerings from providers like MSPs and SaaS offerings
5. Manage your day to day technology direction in line with your MSP
6. Support strategic vendor relationships
Security is one of the most important roles a vCIO plays in a company.
In fact, there is now a special designation for a virtual CIO who has in-depth cybersecurity experience - a virtual CISO (Chief Information Security Officer.)
Just like a vCIO, our vCISO is a service designed to make top-tier security experts available to businesses who need security expertise and guidance.
For many organisations cyber risk is now the number-one concern of executives. The sophistication of attacks, the technologies designed to defend against them and the global regulations emerging to address them is evolving rapidly.
Our vCISO uses a Risk-Based approach, overlaying the technology roadmap our vCISO will develop a strategic security plan that spans across your entire organisation.
It may include security policies, training programs, business continuity planning and disaster recovery, implementing reporting and much more.
Diligence has a proven track record of helping organisations stay ahead of the ever-evolving threat landscape. With a team of certified experts, cutting-edge technology, and a commitment to excellence, we are dedicated to protecting your business and keeping your data secure. Trust us to be your trusted advisor on all things cyber security.
