A 'virtual CIO' service offered last year by CodeBlue has proved so successful that the service provider has taken on new staff to expand the service.
The rationale behind the service was that mid-sized companies and organisations could seldom afford a high-level CIO function but needed that level of strategic advice in order the extract the maximum value from their IT investment.
CodeBlue chief executive Ken Davis defines mid-sized companies as ranging from 10-20 seats up to 300-400 seats.
“Larger companies and organisations pay a significantly lesser cost per seat than do smaller companies, which is not just due to volume buying,” he says. “And with new technologies – for example, around mobile applications and unified communications – there are significant opportunities to support new and better ways of delivering existing products and services, and developing new lines of business.”
More than 30 clients have used the service so far, Davis says.
“We’ve taken on more people with the right skills, and the way the service is packaged and delivered to customers has been further developed. The name ‘Virtual CIO’ has been dropped and we are relaunching the service under the title of ‘CIO Services’.”
He says there are a couple of reasons for the name change, the most important of which is that CIO Services are now being aimed at two market segments. The first is smaller companies with no CIO or IT managerial function; the second is larger companies which have a strategic CIO or senior IT manager function but want to keep and optimise their in-house IT resources, and would rather buy-in additional strategic IT project support on an as-needed basis.
“The skill sets we are providing are people with CIO experience and who come from a strong IT background. They understand the key business drivers and how to translate them to IT strategy,” says Davis.
CodeBlue has more than 85 staff operating from seven centres.
