The Importance of Fractional CIO Services

HOST: JERRY HERAN: Hello everyone and welcome to Cherry Bekaert's Digital Advisory podcast. We're happy to have you here today. My name is Jerry Heran and today we're going to cover fractional CIO services with leader Steve Holiday.

HOST: JERRY HERAN: Hey Steve, thanks for joining me today.

STEVE HOLIDAY: Hello Jerry, thanks for inviting me.

HOST: JERRY HERAN: Today we're going to look at trending topics and the importance of process improvements. We have a lot of ground to cover, so without delay let's get started. First question: tell our listeners what your role at Cherry Bekaert is, tell me a little about your background, and how you got to where you are today.

STEVE HOLIDAY: I lead our CIO Advisory Services practice at Cherry Bekaert, which includes Fractional CIO services as part of our service delivery. I help companies and their management teams identify and implement technology and business process improvements to optimize growth and efficiency.

STEVE HOLIDAY: My background includes experience in business operations, strategic process improvement, and information technology. I have over 20 years in industrial manufacturing and 10 years in financial services and wholesale distribution.

HOST: JERRY HERAN: So what are Fractional CIO services and how does Cherry Bekaert help organizations in this area?

STEVE HOLIDAY: Our fractional CIOs are seasoned IT executives contracted full-time or on a variable monthly basis. Requirements vary depending on the customer's needs and the amount of work required.

STEVE HOLIDAY: A Fractional CIO performs the duties of a CIO: providing leadership, building relationships, understanding the business, and diving deep into the technology. We develop strategies, build the business case for investment and change, create alignment, mobilize projects, monitor progress, and help keep budgets, timelines, project deliverables, and individual performance on track.

STEVE HOLIDAY: The scope is broad. It can include business processes and applications, business systems, technology infrastructure such as networks, communications, servers, computers, and other hardware. It also includes operations whether on-premises or in the cloud, business data and analytics, data sources, data integrity, and consolidation for reporting and analysis.

STEVE HOLIDAY: IT governance covers policies, procedures, oversight, and controls to ensure systems deliver expected results. Information security includes the mechanics and systems to secure data and computing capabilities. Our customers can expect us to help with planning, deployment, and to stand side by side as changes are made.

STEVE HOLIDAY: When we engage, we bring our knowledge and execute as an extension of the customer, aiming to become a trusted business partner.

HOST: JERRY HERAN: Everything you just described contains a lot of moving parts and can be daunting. I'm sure that's one of the main reasons an organization might need these services.

STEVE HOLIDAY: Yes. Sometimes organizations need full-time support to bridge leadership changes. Sometimes growing organizations need an experienced leader but aren't yet at the size to justify a full-time executive financially. Other times, organizations have capable teams but need a more strategic leader or someone with broader knowledge of today's technology options to help put a plan together.

HOST: JERRY HERAN: Why are CIO services important for an organization? You mentioned many different things, but can you give more specifics?

STEVE HOLIDAY: I'm a big believer that when it comes to information technology, it's important to play offense. Organizations that stay on the sidelines too long are at a disadvantage against competitors.

STEVE HOLIDAY: CIO services help improve how the business operates, whether rolling out new technologies or shifting to a digital-first culture. Executing a transformation strategy requires precision and agility for sustained, long-term change.

HOST: JERRY HERAN: What are the first steps in helping an organization with Fractional CIO services?

STEVE HOLIDAY: We assess how the customer is structured and performing. We bring a network of organizations together around the challenge, including Cherry Bekaert, our partners, and others as directed by the customer.

STEVE HOLIDAY: Each situation is unique, but we often encounter common themes. The three most common are underinvestment over time leading to lagging IT, customers continuing down a prior technology path that isn't working, and poor deployment of selected technology.

HOST: JERRY HERAN: Can Fractional CIO services help reduce operating costs as well?

STEVE HOLIDAY: Yes. First consider the cost of a bad technology decision or poor implementation of a good technology choice. Those costs can far exceed the expense of bringing in a Fractional CIO early to be part of decision-making and implementation.

STEVE HOLIDAY: Having the right leadership is critical. There are times when a Fractional CIO may not make sense, particularly for companies that need a full-time technology executive for more than a transitional period.

STEVE HOLIDAY: Our services make sense for companies that need a fractional executive because they haven't grown enough to justify a full-time CIO but expect growth and want a scalable technology foundation. They also make sense when a company has a good team but needs transformational leadership to achieve executive objectives.

HOST: JERRY HERAN: Can you give a quick success story about how you helped a customer supercharge their capabilities?

STEVE HOLIDAY: We recently worked with a PE portfolio company in the aerospace and defense industry. We were initially asked to look at operational efficiency, but conversations with the CEO revealed broader needs for this growing manufacturing operation.

STEVE HOLIDAY: We discussed the current state, their ability to meet increasing Department of Defense (DoD) information security requirements, their systems and infrastructure, growth plans, shop floor bottlenecks, production, and difficulties measuring output, yield, and machine utilization.

STEVE HOLIDAY: We helped them identify an ERP system and pointed them to implementers. We helped plan their compliance with DoD information security requirements, moved them to the Office 365 Government Cloud, and helped protect their most sensitive information.

STEVE HOLIDAY: We implemented a new local network to meet security needs, provided wireless access across the facility, and connected previously isolated shop floor machines. Connecting the machines enabled data collection and the ability to push information to the machines.

STEVE HOLIDAY: We deployed a new IP security camera system to improve employee security and meet DoD requirements. We onboarded their computing infrastructure and hardware and now provide managed services.

STEVE HOLIDAY: Most recently, we helped source a machine data acquisition platform to collect data from connected shop floor machines into the cloud. This enabled real-time reporting of job progress, machine productivity, and production losses.

STEVE HOLIDAY: The data we enabled plays a critical role in their continuous improvement journey, which brings the engagement full circle from the original request to improve operations efficiency.

HOST: JERRY HERAN: One last question: what does Cherry Bekaert bring to the table related to everything we discussed today?

STEVE HOLIDAY: Our people have led technology organizations and held leadership positions across industry. Our Fractional CIOs have experience leading across many industries and serving diverse customers.

STEVE HOLIDAY: In our backgrounds we've worked in industry and with many different customers. We've learned as leaders in these roles and bring that experience to our customers.

HOST: JERRY HERAN: Thanks again for joining us today, Steve. Thank you to the audience for tuning in. Please like, share, and subscribe to our podcast. For more information about Cherry Bekaert's Digital Advisory services, please visit us at cb.com/digital.