Over the course of the last 12 months, businesses have been forced to adapt to a new way of doing business in a virtual and contactless environment. For massive companies with significant budgets, they were able to make the shift fairly seamlessly. But, for small and medium sized enterprises without the capital to employ a CIO or tech leader, the adaptation has caused a variety of issues.

Continuing with our rich history of innovation and outside the box solutions, Smashing Boxes recognized the opportunity to use our technical expertise to offer companies in need a solution by launching CIO Advisor, offering all the benefits of a full-time CIO at a fraction of the cost.

As the digital transformation we’re currently experiencing continues to take shape, it’s important to understand what a CIO is, how it differs from a CTO, and how a CIO can benefit your organization.

What is a CIO?

A CIO, or chief information officer, is a businesses’ IT leader and is responsible for maximizing the company’s productivity through a variety of methods including the implementation of new systems, creating company specific software, running the company’s internal IT operations, developing business strategies to improve the company’s performance.

What’s the difference between a CIO and CTO?

With both the CIO and CTO focused on technology and IT, it’s easy to confuse the two. So, to put it simply, the CIO is focused on the technologies that make the company successful internally, while the CTO concentrates on the external facing technologies.

3 Benefits of a CIO

1. Insight and Innovation – CIO’s are able to evaluate the resources contained within a company and develop strategy and solutions for those resources to work more efficiently and create more value.
2. Daily Productivity – By staying up to date on the latest technologies, a CIO is able to help improve efficiency across the internal structure of an organization. The CIO is responsible for collaborating with various departments to assess need and performance and then developing methods to support the organization and its goals.
3. Risk Management – In the digital age privacy is a key concern amongst businesses and consumers alike. A company’s ability to reassure their customers that their personal information is safe is vital to the long-term success of the business. A CIO is knowledgeable on the current laws regarding data security and privacy as well as staying up to date on the most recent solutions to ensure customer and company privacy is secure.

PPP-2 Loan

The government announced that businesses can invest up to 40% of the PPP-2 loan into cloud and software upgrades. When used carefully, this allows companies to use the PPP-2 loan forgiveness program to turn the loan into a grant that doesn’t need to be repaid and serves as a catalyst for turning software updates into IT driven profit centers.

The current environment doesn’t provide many companies the luxury of focusing on growth, but instead on survival. Smashing Boxes understands this and realizes that there is a sweet spot in the business lifecycle where a CIO can help a company accelerate their growth and we want to put businesses in the best position to do that, no matter the difficulties they are facing.

For more information on how Smashing Boxes can help you, please visit our website or contact Archie OConnor at archie.oconnor@smashingboxes.com.

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