Virtual CIO Services

What is a Virtual CIO?

A Chief Information Officer (CIO) is the most senior technology executive inside an organisation. The role of the CIO is to oversee IT strategy and align the people, processes and technologies that support business objectives and goals. From information security to customer experience, the CIO will look to mitigate risks and drive business growth.

This is a leadership role, so the CIO is someone who focuses on vision and insight rather than someone you’ll find in the server room. Although they possess expert technical knowledge, it’s not uncommon for CIOs to have more of a business background, and this is essential when aligning strategy to operational needs.

The CIO is seen as the ships navigator, carefully planning the route ahead and steering the business safely through the seas of internal and external technology change. They will work closely with other C-level executives, senior managers and business departments to establish buy-in and drive that change.

Today especially, CIOs will have a focus on digital transformation and what that means for an organisation – both now and in the future.

The Virtual CIO (vCIO)

As the CIO has many business-critical responsibilities, the risks are consequently vast. They are often tasked with heading up crucial IT projects that are essential to the strategic and operational objectives of an organization. Failure can result in serious detrimental impact to business – and can even damage reputation. It’s therefore crucial the person responsible for making these key decisions has the relevant skills, knowledge and experience. This, however, comes at a price.

The average salary for a CIO is circa £96k per year (source: payscale.com July 2018). This is beyond the budget of most small and medium sized businesses. The result is that key IT strategic decisions are shared across senior management teams and often become the responsibility of staff who do not possess the relevant skills, or experience, to oversee these decisions. This, in turn, forces companies into making short-term tactical IT choices based on a specific pain or need, without considering the long-term impact to business.

Introducing the Cyan Virtual CIO (vCIO) service

The Cyan vCIO service will help you to make impactful, important technical decisions, overcome the challenges and pitfalls, and design a roadmap for the future. You will know what your business needs to take it to the next level, we will build and execute the plan to ensure the technology supports this growth. All within a comprehensive service, tailored and priced to your needs and budget.
Popular areas in which our vCIO service can take responsibility include:
  • Data security and privacy, cyber protection, business continuity and risk management
  • Regulatory control and management of any governance environment (eg GDPR)
  • Business-critical system integration and/or development – such as finance systems, CRM, ERP, Web Applications
  • Defining the useful life expectancy of your existing technology
  • Formulating IT budget to ensure that your technology meets all your company’s needs, even as it evolves
  • Aligning your business and people with the rapid technology changes occurring around it/them
  • Ensuring operational efficiencies
The service is delivered as a simple monthly subscription, or ad-hoc as and when required.

Is Your IT Spending Under Control?

There’s no doubt that IT spending is one of the most important outgoings that any business has to control. Many companies, however, don’t have a full handle on their budget in this area. Neither do they understand if what they have is suitable for their business in the first place.

Some business spend too much, others have set their budget way to low. Finding the happy medium that delivers everything you need is a challenge but certainly worth the effort.

Deciding Your Budget

There are a number of different factors that will affect the percentage of your budget that you spend on IT. These include:

  • The sector you operate in. Banks tend to devote 7.16% on IT, according to Deloitte. The building sector can be as low as 1.5 % and the average is around 3.3%.
  • The cybersecurity environment can have an impact on spending. In recent years, following a number of high-profile breaches, many high-risk companies have upped their IT budget by as much as 50%.
  • The size of your business and the budget available is, of course, going to determine quite a bit.
  • The truth is, however, that many companies are underspending on their IT and potentially missing the opportunities that the latest developments have to offer.

IT covers a much wider range of assets than many businesses realise. It’s more than just cybersecurity and operating platforms. Your IT spending also includes the hosting package you have for your website, your phones, the cloud services you use, as well as the software packages that help you deliver your business goals, including your CRM and packages such as Office 365.

If you’re a small business, your IT spending can be spread over a bunch of different areas which makes it difficult to keep track of.

How to Control Your IT Spending

The first thing you need to do is carry out an audit and list everything that you use and how much it costs you. Many SMBs don’t have a clearly defined budget for everything under the IT umbrella and it can be quite eye-opening once they discover what they spend.

1. Look at IT as an Investment

Do you think IT is a necessary evil? Then think again.

The mistake that many companies make is not understanding that IT forms the central spine around which the rest of their business operates. Changing how you view IT is important because it can open up new areas of investigation and ensure you make more productive choices when it comes to the services you employ.

For instance, cybersecurity is an investment not only in your own business but your customers as well. The last thing you want is for their data to be stolen and your reputation damaged. Better collaboration tools that your staff are able to access are also an investment because they improve their productivity which in turn boosts your bottom line.

Stop thinking ‘what do I need’ and start exploring the possibilities that IT solutions can deliver.

2. Create an IT Budget

You may be surprised at the number of businesses that don’t have a separate IT budget. Unless you do, you won’t be able to control your IT spending even in a very basic sense. A clearly defined budget helps you keep track of spending and gives you the chance to decide if you want to put more in particular areas of your operation.

3. Focus More on Productivity

The key to successful IT budgeting is to look at it from a productivity viewpoint. There are many software solutions and cloud-based services that may improve the performance of your business and these are developing all the time. For example, the growth of AI help and support services in recent times could take pressure off your staff and increase customer loyalty because the most popular queries are being answered with little or no time delay.

4. Be Strategic

Finally, it’s no use increasing or lowering your budget unless you are doing it for a reason. It may be pertinent to your business to cut costs but IT is generally not the best area to do this. You always need a good plan and it pays to discuss your options with an IT service provider that understands your needs.

At Cyan Solutions, we can help you better develop your IT spending and keep it under control while really delivering for your business. We provide IT support, cybersecurity solutions, virtual CIO and cloud based services that can really help transform productivity at a price you can afford. Contact our expert team today to find out more.

IT Budget Planning Mistakes You Should Avoid

There’s no telling when rising costs can start to get the better of your business. That’s why it’s vital to make sure you budget properly. That goes whether you are a small business with just a few employees or a large corporation with thousands.

If you’re a company that wants to stay ahead of its competitors, one thing you will certainly need to focus on is your IT budget planning. It’s pivotal to ensure you are able to deliver great services to your customers and provide the tools that your staff need to promote your business and drive it forward.

It’s not all plain sailing, however. There are plenty of pitfalls that can siphon off elements of your budget, leaving less for more important areas of your business. To help out, the team at Cyan Solutions have put together a list of the top budgeting mistakes you will want to avoid.

1. Not Fully Understanding Your Needs

Whether you are planning a digital transformation, want to up your cybersecurity posture or simply want to migrate your business operation to the cloud, understanding what each move entails and why you are doing it is important.

Many of the businesses we come across, treat their IT as a piecemeal thing rather than a series of interconnected dots that create a whole. Before you go about IT budget planning, your first step is to list the components of your current provision and decide what purpose each serves. Then you can begin to look at what you want to add to make your business more secure, more productive or more efficient.

Aligning your IT needs with your business needs is imperative. Making sure that your tech spend is heading in the right direction to support growth and revenue is not always an easy thing to do, however.

2. Budgeting and Timeline

This is a common issue with many businesses operating on a fairly restricted budget. It can mean you end up budgeting from month to month rather than looking at 1 year, 2 year or even a 5-year projection. That also means you are unlikely to have an IT budget in place that can help service you if you intend to grow. Try to see as far ahead as possible and understand what your costs are and how you are going to meet them.

3. Not Being Ready for Changes

It’s all well and good spending money on new technology but a huge mistake businesses make is not ensuring they are good to go when it is finally in place. An example of this would be if you were planning to migrate your operational procedures and other IT to the cloud so that it can be accessed securely from anywhere. If you haven’t trained your staff for using this new approach and you haven’t considered other issues such as your online security, you could be wasting money and not delivering a decent ROI from the outset.

Moving to the cloud has more benefits than simply cost savings and businesses need to be aware of this while deciding what their priorities are. If you are a company that has busier periods during the year (for example, Christmas), being able to up your capacity at this time can be of huge benefit and that’s something moving to the cloud can facilitate.

4. Choosing the Wrong Software License Plan

Software-as-a-Service, or SaaS, subscription licensing (eg SalesForce, Microsoft Office 365, Google Apps) has now become the norm for most companies. What businesses often fail to do, however, is understand their actual license needs, which often means they over commit and, inevitably, overspend. A team of sales people, for example, will have very different needs to teams working in operations or finance. Some users may just need access to online tools, others will need the full suite of features. Identifying which license plan suits each role in your business could save you significant costs in the long term.

5. Tech and Value

It can be tempting to get the latest bit of tech, just because everyone else is doing it or because you’ve seen an ad somewhere. Business owners looking to improve their efficiency or add value to their customers, bring in new technological solutions without truly understanding whether they are adding value or not.

On the other side of this is making sure that the software and IT services you are currently using are actually still providing value for money. For businesses, especially smaller ones, this can be a difficult balancing act to get right, especially if they have new technology that impacts on the performance of older software.

In a rapidly changing world where new tech is appearing almost daily, it is difficult for businesses to keep up. While sticking with tried and tested solutions can seem financially sensible, there always comes a point where that more advanced technology has to be given some breathing room.

At Cyan Solutions, we provide a range of IT support and services for businesses across the UK. If you’d like to find out how we can help support your next round of IT budget planning, contact the team at Cyan today.

What is Your IT Strategy?

Technology has revolutionised the way we do business. It’s so much easier to start up a company in the first place and innovations such as remote working and productivity software are making it viable for business owners to not only achieve their goals but scale up quicker than ever before.

Having new tech at your disposal, however, and knowing how to use it are two different things.

Here we take a look at how developing a strong IT strategy is vital in order to power any business into the future.

What is IT Strategy?

You’ll have a strategy for your business including goals you want to achieve and when you want to achieve them. Your IT strategy is all about the technical support and the tools you require to achieve these aims.

It may be something as simple as your internet connection or the virus security you have in place to protect both your business and your customers. It is likely nowadays to be more complex, including how you use the cloud and software packages together to deliver your services and enable employees to operate productively.

How to Create an IT Strategy

The problem with IT strategies is that businesses don’t often understand how they work and what the benefits are. Whether you are an established company or a new venture, it pays to do your research and find out what you really need.

That includes forming a relationship with an IT provider who not only understands those needs but has access to the latest technology and best practice.

1. Your Business Goals

The first thing that you need to get nailed down are your business goals and how these are going to be implemented in the future. These can include sales performance and targets, growth and action plans for the future and areas where you want to build relationships with other businesses.

You need to align everything in your future business development with an IT strategy that helps you achieve your goals as efficiently as possible.

2. Stakeholders and Your IT Roadmap

The next stage is to develop a roadmap and get individual stakeholders involved. Stakeholders are the managers and technical people in your business who are going to help deliver your IT strategy. They can include the IT company that you choose to bring on board but largely they are the people in your business who will monitor and liaise with that service to deliver the desired results.

3. What Your IT Currently Delivers

Unless you are a start-up, you will already have IT in place. It’s important to look at this closely. What works and what doesn’t?

There are lots of questions you need to ask here, not least what technology you are currently using and how it works for your employees and your business. Are there ways to do things better or does your current provision deliver what you need?

This involves thinking critically about all aspects of your IT delivery. It’s important to identify areas where things can be improved and where savings and productivity can be maximised.

4. Allocation and Software

Next, you need to put together the software that you will be using and organise how this is going to be allocated throughout your business. It’s important to consider how everything fits together with any IT strategy.

It’s no use having different software and IT components that work against each other and the more of an overview you can achieve the better. It’s a good idea to keep all activity and software information together in one spreadsheet where you can see how everything interacts and what it delivers.

5. Measure Performance

The last thing you need is an IT strategy that doesn’t work and fails to meet your requirements. It’s important, therefore, to measure performance. If you’ve done all the previous steps well, this will be a relatively easy process and putting key metrics and KPIs in place should be a formality.

All too often, businesses look at their IT as a fragmented set of tools that are more a marriage of convenience than a bona fide strategy. The true aim of a strong IT strategy is to bring all your technological resources under one umbrella where they work together and deliver real benefits for your business.

If you want inspiring IT solutions, Cyan Solutions can help. Discover how developing your IT strategy will make a huge difference to the growth and the future of your company. Contact us today to find out more.

Tips for Finding the Best IT Consulting Solutions

It can be difficult staying up-to-date with the latest advances in technology or understanding how these can benefit your business if they are implemented. Most business owners don’t completely understand what a managed IT solution can provide or how it fits in with the way their company currently runs.

There are also plenty of companies offering IT consulting solutions ‘tailored’ to your needs out there, each promising the earth. But which one should you chose? How do you separate the worthwhile IT consultants from the ones that are likely to hold your business back?

Your IT partner can make a huge difference to the success or failure of your business and how competitive it is. Here are our tips for finding the right company:

1. Understand What You Need

You need to be able to match the services on offer to complement your business activities. Take a look at your short and long term goals and then find out what IT consulting solutions are going to benefit these.

You might want high levels of security because of the kind of data you handle, or services that constantly monitor your threat status and automatically provide solutions. You may want to introduce new cloud services so that your staff are able to perform more productively.

2. Take Your Time

Finding the best IT consultant to work with can take time. There are lots of options online and you shouldn’t rush, or allow yourself to be rushed, into picking this company or that company. It’s better to take some extra time, including having a cooling off period before you finally decide, to ensure you get the best partner for the future development of your business.

3. Look for Expertise

The best IT consulting solutions are the ones that have a range of expertise available. You rarely get this from one person businesses – they can be stretched for time and certainly won’t have the level of knowledge you are looking for. You should check not only the number of staff they have on board but what their specialisations are.

It’s important to interview your prospective IT consultancy and find out all you can about them. Check for online reviews and ask for referrals.

4. Does It Fit Your Needs

If you’ve made a list of what you are looking for as a business, done your due diligence and matched up the various services you require, the final thing you need to decide is whether the IT service meets your needs and ticks all the right boxes. Some extra areas to consider are how long they have been operating and whether they are able to respond to your changing needs.

IT Consulting Solutions: Why Choose Cyan?

At Cyan we pride ourselves in being a flexible, high tech solution for today’s modern businesses. We offer a range of different services that can be tailored to your needs. If you want to start small and cover just a few areas of IT support, we can certainly help with that. The good news is that our provision is scalable – which means, as your requirements change, so can our service.

We work closely with our customers to identify the areas where they need support. Here are just some of the things we can help your business with:

Managed IT Support: For many businesses, IT can take up much more time than they have to offer internally. A managed IT solution basically takes the weight off your shoulders and provides the full service and maintenance you need at a cost you can afford.

Cyber Security: Safety of data is probably the biggest worry that businesses have nowadays. Your success depends on having a secure eco-system, protecting your from both financial and reputational damage. At Cyan, our expert team helps put in all the processes that protect your business, including managed firewalls and anti-virus software that is fit for purpose.

Cloud Services: More and more businesses are using the cloud to deliver flexibility and agility for their employees. Our subscription-based services mean that you can keep control of the costs and give your staff the tools they need to achieve your goals.

Virtual CIO Consultancy Services: Most businesses don’t have the finances to employ a Chief Information Officer on site. Our virtual service means that you can access the latest advice and technology to drive your business forward at a fraction of the cost.

IT consulting solutions can be complicated and are challenging to get right. If your business is looking for a partner that can deliver tailored services and grow and scale as you develop, contact the team at Cyan today.

Embrace New Technology with an IT Transformation Strategy

Often, businesses can stick with the same tried and trusted methods or operational approaches because their staff are either comfortable with them or it just seems too much work to change.

It can sometimes take a catastrophic event such as the loss of a client or a data breach before CEOs and business owners decide to take a deeper look at their current IT services. The truth is your business should not be waiting for such an event. It pays to be proactive and to look at the options long before anything goes wrong.

Engaging in an IT transformation strategy will not only improve your security online but make your business more productive and competitive in today’s fast-paced world. Here’s what you need to know.

What is an IT Transformation Strategy?

IT transformation may seem like an option which you can take or leave, depending on your business. It’s actually a necessity and most leading companies except it now.

If you want your business to perform on a level playing field with your competitors or you are planning to grow in the future, your IT transformation strategy should be an ongoing process, not a one-off change in your business operation that you implement when all else fails.

An IT transformation strategy could include:

  • Introducing new elements such as cloud-based services that allow employees to operate more productively
  • Bringing in software and operating systems that help you deliver better services to customers than you do now
  • Boosting online security so that you better protect data and information processing for your business

IT transformation may already be part of the your business process, especially if you are a start-up where the latest technology can provide you with a competitive edge. One of the barriers that often sits in the way of transformational change for older, existing companies, however, is the cost.

On-demand services and outsourcing are a lot more cost effective than many business owners think. The biggest challenge is generally getting other people on board rather than switching to new technology that offers a good ROI in the long-term.

The Benefits for Your Business

If it’s not broke, don’t fix it. That’s the popular mantra many business owners tend to dance to. Unfortunately, that can mean being stuck with outdated IT systems and even avoiding products that could improve performance.

For example, switching to cloud-based services means that your staff can access your software wherever they are in the world. You might have sales teams out in the field, who will be able to use their smartphones or tablets to give prospective clients up-to-date information. Cloud computing gives you the opportunity to install software that enables different teams to work closely together even if they are not in the same office or location, sharing documents and setting goals more efficiently.

Your IT transformation strategy will also include boosting cybersecurity. We’re under more threat than ever before from hackers and those with malicious intent. Updating your IT security is vital if your business wants to combat these threats and remain safe in the modern environment, especially if you are availing yourself of cloud services or bringing in new, high-tech software.

According to Hiscox, small businesses are subject to some 65,000 different cyber attacks each day and actual breaches cost on average £27,000 to put right.

Challenges in Implementing an IT Transformation Strategy

If you decide that an IT transformation strategy is the way forward for your business, there are certain challenges you are going to face. Employees can be resistant to change of any kind, believing that it presents a threat to their jobs. Particularly in an age where AI is delivering automation software that can do repetitive tasks and even answer customer queries better than a human being, this is likely to be an issue in most companies.

The key to successfully bringing on board an IT transformation strategy is not just convincing your staff that it’s important, making their lives better, but how it benefits your company in becoming more competitive and productive in the marketplace.

That’s not always easy if you don’t understand our rapidly improving technology, especially if IT is not your strong point. Staff may need to learn new ways of working, might even have to change jobs altogether, so it’s important to get buy-in from teams.

Working together with an IT service that not only understands your business but can communicate effectively makes a big difference. They may suggest introducing updates and new IT infrastructure gradually so that your employees and teams can gradually get used to things. If major changes are required, they will be able to show how disruption can be minimised and how staff can be effectively brought on board. Simplified processes can also make adoption much easier and transitions more seamless.

If you are searching for IT support that is tailored to your needs and meets the demands of modern businesses, contact the team at Cyan today to find out more.

Do Your Employees Understand Your IT Business Strategy?

The majority of businesses today have some form of IT strategy in place. That plan normally goes beyond the standard use of security software and a nod towards threat management.

It includes the tools and apps that are used to manage daily work, training of staff to use industry-specific software, and developing protocols to ensure the safety of data and the way that is used throughout the business.

When it comes to IT business strategy, keeping up with the advances and challenges has become a lot more complicated in recent years. Not only are we subject to highly sophisticated attacks but employees are also using a range of devices, including their own smartphones and tablets, to deliver on their company’s needs via cloud-based services.

One question all businesses need to ask is how much employees understand about their IT strategy in the first place. How confident is each individual in implementing the processes that are in place?

Creating a Robust IT Business Strategy

The first step is to develop the right strategy that fits your business. This is all about aligning your IT services and systems so they support your business priorities. While this is not always easy to achieve, it allows you to:

  • Plan for future changes in your IT service
  • Stay in control of the costs of IT for your business
  • Ensure you have robust process in place that protect you, your employees and your customers, reducing the risk of disruption to your business

Make Your IT Business Strategy Available

Assuming that you have the best strategy in place, you need to make employees aware of what it is, how it fits into your wider business plan and what everyone’s responsibility is.

One of the big challenges business have is how to protect their data and processes from cyber attack, particularly in light of the new GDPR. Building awareness among employees should be a vital element of your IT business strategy, an ongoing, not a one-off, process.

Your IT strategy needs to be readily available to employees (both online and in hardcopy) and should be written in plain English so everyone understands what is expected of them. If staff don’t know how they are to implement the strategy, you will quickly find gaps in delivery that can eventually seriously damage the efficiency and even the safety of your company.

Ensure Staff Understand the Risks and Their Responsibility

An employee who opens an email link that carries a malware programme is one of the most common ways in which businesses are attacked. These kinds of threats generally succeed because of lack of understanding or knowledge on the part of the victim rather than any malicious intent.

There are greater challenges nowadays, particularly with many businesses using cloud-based services. On the one hand, these give companies much greater flexibility in how they communicate and improve productivity. On the other, cloud IT services also present a challenge to security. If an employee is using their smartphone to access business data, how secure is it? What does that employee need to be aware of when performing their job on a daily basis?

Have Regular Update and Training Sessions for Employees

It’s vital that employees understand what their responsibilities are when it comes to your IT business strategy. There are various ways in which this can be achieved but the onus is on business managers, CEOs and owners to ensure that these processes are implemented.

  • Effective onboarding for new staff: Every time someone new starts at your business, a priority needs to be given to providing information and training on IT services and the responsibilities involved
  • Available training materials: Staff should have access to relevant IT training either through organised group sessions, online courses or a mixture of both. More problems in businesses are caused by staff who don’t know how to use software or systems safely
  • Regular assessments for staff: It’s not enough to provide training and informational updates, business owners need to be sure their staff are taking the training onboard. Assessing staff competency and understanding when it comes to IT services should be a priority
  • Options for reporting: You should have the process in place that allows employees to raise concerns or report any potential breach

Most businesses, particularly new start-ups, understand that IT is important. Unfortunately, they either take it too much for granted or fail to put in the appropriate measures to ensure safety and security at all levels. In today’s online world, that can mean putting your business at risk of a cybersecurity breach.

Developing staff so that they are better informed about your IT business strategy should ensure they are equipped to handle today’s cybersecurity risks. That in turn, will keep your business safer.

Here at Cyan Solutions, we can assist with the development of an IT strategy for your business, as well as the implementation. If you would like to find out more and speak to one of our experts contact us today.

Driving Business Growth Through IT Infrastructure

IT infrastructure is often a practice that is avoided or stepped around, with many companies simply going with the flow when it comes to their IT management. Many businesses will only make changes and upgrades when it becomes necessary due to equipment failures. Operating your IT planning in this reactive, fire-fighting way is not going to support and help your business grow. A good and well thought out IT infrastructure should be aligned with the businesses goals and growth plans.

While an efficient IT plan does take time and careful planning to create, they are worthwhile and will help your business reach its goals and prevent issues and faults. Having a decent IT infrastructure in place can help a company to optimise its resources, save costs, reduce dependencies and improve productivity. On the other end of the spectrum, having a poor or non-existent IT plan can result in outdated systems, digital skills gaps and lack of productivity all of which can affect your bottom line.

It can all be a bit overwhelming with where to start when creating an IT infrastructure for your business, which often puts organisations off. However, if it is done properly, it will pay off in the long run. Architecture and Governance Magazine revealed that some Fortune 500 companies and government agencies had validated returns on investment as high as 700% thanks to their investment in IT planning.

Here at Cyan Solutions, we have the expertise and knowledge to assist you in creating an effective and powerful IT infrastructure that supports your business and its long-term goals with a proactive approach. We do not believe in one-size-fits-all, and so our approach to all projects is considered and structured; we highly tailor every detail to fit seamlessly with your business model. Following a plan, create, maintain model, we work carefully at every stage to ensure we develop a service that truly addresses your individual needs – both now and in the future.

Plan: How to prepare for creating an effective IT infrastructure

A thorough audit of everything your business currently has by way of IT and everything it will need in the future is the best place to start when creating an IT plan. On the surface, it may seem that an IT plan only concerns hardware and software, but there is so much more to consider. It is important to think about the human resources of the business, the cost management involved, and also the risk management.

At Cyan Solutions, we work closely with our customers to undergo comprehensive reviews that will give us a detailed insight into the businesses IT needs and assets. This process provides us with the opportunity to integrate our strategic thinking as part of your team.

Once we have completed a comprehensive audit and got a full understanding of your business needs, we can then help to create an actionable IT framework strategy and plan that covers all aspects of the company. At this stage, we will also ensure that your IT infrastructure is fully GDPR compliant.

Create: Designing and implementing the IT framework

Once the plan has been finalised and agreed upon, we will get started on designing and implementing the infrastructure, while ensuring minimal disruption to the day to day running of your business. We will develop your new IT capabilities through the previously planned and agreed software and hardware. Working closely with all vendors and software providers, we will unlock the potential of your IT.

At this stage we also ensure everyone within the business is happy and fully trained on any new platforms or applications that have been implemented. We use technical architecture to tailor the IT infrastructure to be specific to your business needs while ensuring the highest levels of security, flexibility and accessibility. It is the advantage of proven technology, tailored to your individual needs and goals.

Maintain: Proactive maintenance and performance monitoring

We guarantee a long-term solution and offer the highest level of service with a robust set of agreements. Once your new IT infrastructure is up and running, we continue to work hard to troubleshoot for any potential issues and provide proactive maintenance to help keep your systems up to date and running in the best possible way for your business.

We will implement any relevant patches, monitor overall performance, and keep on top of industry issues. Our expert teams will guarantee your new system is upgraded and adapted where necessary and ensure that your infrastructure is properly protecting your customer’s data and is always fully GDPR compliant.

When you choose Cyan Solutions, you can expect fast and responsive help from a knowledgeable team that is always on hand to help. As a result, you will get exceptional service whenever you need it, as well as total transparency on our performance. With your IT infrastructure taken care of, you can reap the rewards and focus your attention on your business growth strategy.

Start your growth strategy today

If you want to find out more about how Cyan Solutions can help you to plan, create and maintain an IT infrastructure that will support your business growth, get in touch with our expert team today.

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Why Use A Virtual CIO? 

The fast-paced world of IT can make it very difficult for small businesses to keep up. Having a full IT department to not only maintain the day to day core functioning but also to strategise for the future of the organisation comes at great expense. Fortunately, there are ways for enterprises to enjoy the value of a strategic IT department, without the significant costs and impact on the whole business budget. Introducing a Virtual Chief Information Officer (vCIO).

What Is a Virtual CIO?

A Virtual Chief Information Officer provides all of the services of an on-site IT department, such as maintaining computers, protecting servers and troubleshooting IT issues. However, as you do not need staff, it is a service that provides IT protection at a significantly reduced cost.

As well as maintaining IT systems in a way an IT team or managed IT service provider can offer, a virtual CIO has the ability, knowledge and skillset to strategise your IT requirements and plan for the future.  Using in-depth analytics and expertise in strategy, budget planning and operations, a virtual CIO can go beyond traditional IT services and be proactive for your organisation. This advanced skillset can not only help your business to save money, but by utilising a virtual CIO instead of employing a full-time CIO, you can enjoy superior services for less.

Having a virtual CIO allows your business to remain competitive. Your organisation can enjoy an advanced strategic role without the staffing costs. With a virtual CIO, you have the flexibility and reduced costs that your business needs. You can utilise virtual CIO services for a few hours a week or choose a service on an as and when basis. At Cyan Solutions, we will work with your organisation to plan your virtual CIO needs so that you have the right level of virtual CIO assistance that your business requires.

What can a virtual CIO do?

Ultimately, a virtual CIO can seek out the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats for your business and help your organisation to be proactive in its response. One aspect in which small businesses can particularly gain an advantage is with risk, governance and compliance. Penalties in the technology sector can be rife, particularly when it comes to data. With a virtual CIO, you can stay ahead of the changes in the industry and make sure that you put your compliance plan in place before any deadlines.

Other areas that a virtual CIO can help with is improving all aspects of your IT planning both in the short-term and long-term, to help lessen the impact on your bottom line. Virtual CIO service may help you to evaluate aspects of your IT that you have yet to consider. Looking beyond the architecture and service you provide, a virtual CIO can help with elements including;

  • Performance analytics
  • Web and communications strategy
  • Telecommunication
  • Knowledge sharing and information database
  • Auditing
  • Change and change management.

With all of these aspects considered, a virtual CIO can be a great investment to help reduce costs and improve productivity and efficiency.

Benefits of a virtual CIO

Comprehensive coverage:As discussed above, a virtual CIO covers all of your IT requirements, from day to day maintenance to long-term strategy and planning solutions. With no hidden charges or separate billing, you receive the services you require for the time that your organisation needs. For some organisations, this can mean a fixed monthly cost with 24/7 protection and monitoring. For others, they may require more from a virtual CIO at peak demand periods.

Proactive prevention: A virtual CIO managed system can help to monitor your current IT health with the help of dashboards and analytics. By forecasting and real-time monitoring, you can be sure of a proactive response which can eliminate problems before they arise. With full visibility through an impartial system, your business can make the right decisions based on accurate information.

Increased productivity: By making sure your IT system is well structured and carefully managed, you can reduce the risk of downtime and impacted operations. With a virtual CIO, you can make sure that everything is running efficiently. With updated software, hardware and cloud technology, you can seamlessly increase staff productivity and project uptake to maximise success and keep your projects profitable.

Virtual CIO with Cyan Solutions

Of course, the core benefit of a virtual CIO is how cost effective it can be. By covering all services from a comprehensive IT department in a virtual manner, your business can reduce costs and increase efficiency leading to further savings. At Cyan Solutions, we want every company to realise their potential. After a comprehensive IT audit, we can explain the benefits a virtual CIO can bring to your business and tailor a virtual CIO package to suit your needs.

Find out more about what we can do to help your business and take the first steps to IT efficiency by arranging your IT audit with Cyan Solutions by contacting us.