In most growing companies nobody owns IT. Laptops are set up by hand, licenses renew without review, former employees keep their access, and the office manager is the help desk. It works until an outage, an audit or a security incident shows how much was resting on habit.
As your fractional CIO I take ownership of that operating side: the systems your people use every day, the vendors behind them, the security around them and the budget that pays for them. The goal is simple. Technology that is reliable, secure and cost-effective, with one person accountable for it.
What you get
- An inventory of every system, license and vendor, with an owner and a cost against each one.
- Identity and device management done properly: single sign-on, managed laptops, and access that is removed the day someone leaves.
- Microsoft 365 administration and hardening, including email, Teams and phones.
- Vendor and contract management: renewals reviewed, overlap removed, providers held to their commitments.
- Backup, recovery and continuity that have been tested, not assumed.
- A technology budget and regular reporting that leadership can read.
How the engagement runs
- Inventory and assessment. Systems, accounts, devices, network, vendors, contracts and spend.
- Stabilize. Close the urgent gaps first: access, backups, unmanaged devices and anything one failure away from an outage.
- Standardize. One way to provision a laptop, onboard an employee and connect an office, managed from one place.
- Operate. A set number of days each month to manage vendors, review spend and security, and report to leadership.
Proof
At SottoPelle Therapy, a multi-state healthcare practice, ten offices each ran on their own workgroup network with infected PCs and nothing managed centrally. I consolidated them onto one managed Windows domain behind Cisco firewalls, moved the core infrastructure into a data center and unified the phones. Afterward, one person supported more than 10 offices and more than 80 employees.
At Mr Target and Epic Golf Club, the same discipline sits under the software: segmented UniFi networks, laptops managed through Intune and Entra, Microsoft 365, and a full migration from Google Workspace at Epic.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between a CIO and a CTO?
A CIO looks inward at the technology the business runs on: systems, security, vendors and cost. A CTO looks outward at the technology the business competes with. CIO vs CTO explains how to tell which one you need.
We already have an IT provider. Why add a CIO?
A managed service provider keeps devices and tickets moving. It does not decide which systems you should run, or whether you are paying for the right ones. A fractional CIO sets that direction and manages the provider. See Fractional CTO vs Agency vs MSP vs Dev Shop.
Can one person cover both the CIO and CTO roles?
At many established companies, yes, and it is often the better arrangement because infrastructure and platform decisions depend on each other. I work on both sides; the fractional CTO page covers the other half.
How do we know where we stand today?
The scorecard takes a few minutes and gives a plain-English read on whether your systems are keeping up with the business.