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14 Amazing Benefits

of Hiring a Fractional CIO Hiring a fractional CIO (chief information officer) has several potential benefits for a company. Understanding benefits are as important as understanding the differences between the CIO and your Manage Services Provider, as they are different and should be distinct. Some of the most significant benefits may include the following: Key Benefits - Cost efficiency: A fractional CIO can help a company to achieve cost savings while still benefiting from the expertise and knowledge of a CIO. Hiring fractional CIO services can be more cost-effective than hiring a full-time CIO since the national average for a CIO's salary is over $250,000 plus benefits; smaller companies may need more money for a full-time executive. Hiring a fractional CIO on a part-time or project basis allows a company to access C-level technology leadership and support without the commitment and expenses of a full-time hire. Hiring a fractional CIO can help the company reduce personnel costs, avoid additional office space and equipment, and minimize the need for other benefits and perks. Additionally, fractional CIOs often bring a wealth of experience and knowledge to the table, allowing the company to benefit from their expertise and achieve better results with fewer resources. As a result, companies that hire fractional CIOs can achieve a high level of technology leadership and support while maximizing cost efficiency and the return on their technology investments. Fractional CIOs typically charge an hourly rate or a flat fee for their services, which can be less expensive than the salary and benefits required to hire a full-time CIO. - Flexibility: You can engage with a fractional CIO on a part-time or as-needed basis, which allows the company to access a CIO's expertise and guidance without the commitment of a full-time employee. Because fractional CIOs are only on an as-needed basis, organizations can scale their technology support up or down as needed, potentially resulting in cost savings. - Specialized expertise: Many fractional CIOs have extensive experience and knowledge in specific areas, such as digital transformation, cybersecurity, data analytics, or cloud computing. This experience can significantly benefit companies needing help within a particular area but needing in-house expertise to address it. - Access to expertise: Fractional CIOs often have a wealth of experience working with various organizations and technologies, which can benefit companies that may need more resources to hire a full-time CIO with such a broad range of expertise. - Specialized skills: By working with a fractional CIO, organizations can benefit by getting access to these skills temporarily without having to hire a full-time employee with those skills. Hiring a fractional CIO can be more cost-effective than training current employees or hiring new ones. - Objectivity: A fractional CIO because they are not an in-house employee, companies can benefit from a fresh perspective and are less likely to be influenced by company politics. A new outlook can lead to more objective decisions and recommendations in the company's best interest rather than being controlled by personal or departmental agendas. The fractional CIO can also provide an unbiased assessment of the company's technology needs and help it make decisions that align with its goals and objectives. - Time savings: Having a fractional CIO can save time for the company's leadership team, as they can rely on the CIO to handle specific technology-related tasks and projects, freeing up time to focus on other priorities. - Scalability: Hiring a fractional CIO allows you to increase or decrease the level of support as needed without having to commit to a full-time hire. This scalability enables the business to adjust its technology resources to accommodate growth or changes in demand without incurring additional costs or inefficiencies. - Focus on core business: a benefit of hiring a fractional CIO refers to the ability of a company to concentrate on its core operations and leave the management and strategy of its technology to the fractional CIO. Doing this allows the company to delegate the time and energy required to effectively manage technology to a professional, freeing up resources and allowing the company to focus on its core competencies and goals. With their specialized knowledge and experience, the fractional CIO can provide the technology the company needs without diverting resources from its main objectives. - Access to the latest technology: A company to leverage the expertise and knowledge of the fractional CIO to keep up with new and emerging technologies. Due to their experience and involvement in the technology industry, the fractional CIO can provide valuable insights and recommendations on the latest technology and help the company make informed decisions about implementing new technology solutions to improve business operations and increase efficiency and competitiveness. This access to the newest technology and expertise can help the company to stay ahead of the curve and remain relevant in a rapidly evolving technological landscape. - Improved risk management: The fractional CIO can help a company to mitigate and manage technology-related risks more effectively. With their experience and knowledge of technology and risk management, the fractional CIO can help the company identify potential risks and implement strategies to minimize or mitigate them. Risk Management can include data security, business continuity, compliance with regulations and standards, and ensuring the reliability and availability of technology systems. Improved risk management can lead to a more secure and stable technology environment, reducing the potential for costly disruptions or data breaches. - Improved service levels: The fractional CIO, with their technical expertise and experience, can help to improve the design, implementation, and management of technology systems, leading to more efficient and effective technology services. Enhanced service levels can lead to increased productivity, reduced downtime, and better customer satisfaction, among other benefits. Additionally, the fractional CIO can help the company prioritize technology initiatives, allocate resources effectively, and ensure that technology investments align with the company's overall goals and objectives. - Access to a broader pool of talent: A company can tap into the expertise and knowledge of a more comprehensive range of professionals in the technology industry. As a consultant or part-time employee, the fractional CIO can bring in outside talent or resources to address specific technology needs and challenges, providing the company with access to a larger pool of skills and experience. Tapping into a bigger talent pool can be particularly beneficial for smaller companies needing more resources to build and maintain an in-house technology team. The fractional CIO can also help the company to build relationships with technology vendors, service providers, and other industry partners, further expanding the company's access to talent and expertise. - Improved governance & compliance: A fractional CIO can help a company to better adhere to relevant regulations, standards, and best practices in the technology industry. With their knowledge and experience, the fractional CIO can help the company understand and comply with legal and regulatory requirements and industry-specific standards and guidelines. Governance & compliance can include data privacy, security, governance, and compliance with standards such as ISO, PCI, and others. Improved governance and compliance can lead to a more secure and trustworthy technology environment, reducing the risk of legal or regulatory penalties and protecting the company's reputation. It can also help the company to build trust with customers and other stakeholders by demonstrating a commitment to responsible and ethical technology practices. It's important to note that while there a be cost savings associated with hiring fractional CIO services, there may also be additional costs involved, such as the fees for the fractional CIO's services, the cost of any additional technology or resources needed, and any other expenses related to any projects. JAYCO CIO Services JAYCO CIO Services, founded in 2018, services clients nationwide and offers various services designed to help businesses improve their technology capabilities and move forward, such as Digital Transformation, Block Chain, and ERP migrations. We Provide education, mentorship, and training on new technologies that can be valuable for organizations looking to stay competitive and streamline their operations. It is essential for businesses to continuously learn and adapt to keep up-to-date with the latest technologies and best practices, and the services you offer can be helpful in this regard. If interested in meeting our CIOs, click here to read their bios. At JAYCO CIO Services, We have a holistic approach to working with executive officers, stakeholders, and IT teams to understand the current state of a business's technology and identify areas for improvement that can be an effective way to help organizations move forward and achieve their goals. JAYCO CIO Services can provide an assessment and follow up with a report detailing the findings of this assessment can be a valuable tool for helping businesses understand where they need to focus their efforts to make progress. Do you have more questions or want to talk to someone about how Fractional CIO services can help your company? Read the full article

Hiring a Fractional CIO Services?

The Fractional CIO Services most significant Benefits? Hiring a fractional CIO (chief information officer) has several potential benefits for a company. Some of the most significant benefits may include the following: - Cost savings: Hiring a fractional CIO can be more cost-effective than hiring a full-time CIO, especially for smaller companies that may not have the budget for a full-time executive. Fractional CIOs typically charge an hourly rate or a flat fee for their services, which can be less expensive than the salary and benefits required to hire a full-time CIO. - Flexibility: A fractional CIO can be hired on a part-time or as-needed basis, which allows the company to access a CIO's expertise and guidance without the commitment of a full-time employee. Because fractional CIOs are only on an as-needed basis, organizations can scale their technology support up or down as needed, potentially resulting in cost savings. - Specialized expertise: Many fractional CIOs have extensive experience and knowledge in specific areas, such as cybersecurity, data analytics, or cloud computing. This can be especially beneficial to companies that need help in a specific area but don't have the in-house expertise to address it. - Access to expertise: Fractional CIOs often have a wealth of experience working with various organizations and technologies, which can be beneficial to companies that may not have the resources to hire a full-time CIO with such a broad range of expertise. - Specialized skills: By working with a fractional CIO, organizations can get access to specialized skills on a temporary basis, without having to hire a full-time employee with those skills. This can be more cost-effective than training current employees or hiring new ones. - Objectivity: A fractional CIO can bring a fresh perspective and objectivity to the company's technology strategy and decision-making process. - Time savings: Having a fractional CIO can save time for the company's leadership team, as they can rely on the CIO to handle specific technology-related tasks and projects, freeing up time to focus on other priorities. It's important to note that while there can be cost savings associated with hiring a fractional CIO, there may also be additional costs involved, such as the fees for the fractional CIO's services, the cost of any additional technology or resources needed, and any other expenses related to the project. JAYCO CIO Services JAYCO CIO Services, offers a range of services designed to help businesses improve their technology capabilities and move forward. Providing education, mentorship, and training on new technologies can be valuable for organizations looking to stay competitive and streamline their operations. It is important for businesses to continuously learn and adapt in order to stay up-to-date with the latest technologies and best practices, and the services you offer can be helpful in this regard. At JAYCO CIO Services, Working with executive officers, stakeholders, and IT teams to understand the current state of a business's technology and identify areas for improvement can be an effective way to help organizations move forward and achieve their goals. Providing a report detailing the findings of this assessment can be a valuable tool for helping businesses understand where they need to focus their efforts in order to make progress. Do you have more questions or want to talk to someone about how a Fractional CIO can help your company? Read the full article

The Fractional CIO Services most significant Benefits?Hiring a fractional CIO (chief information officer) has several potential benefits for a company. Some of the most significant benefits may include the following:- Cost savings: Hiring a fractional CIO can be more cost-effective than hiring a full-time CIO, especially for smaller companies that may not have the budget for a full-time executive. Fractional CIOs typically charge an hourly rate or a flat fee for their services, which can be less expensive than the salary and benefits required to hire a full-time CIO.- Flexibility: A fractional CIO can be hired on a part-time or as-needed basis, which allows the company to access a CIO's expertise and guidance without the commitment of a full-time employee. Because fractional CIOs are only on an as-needed basis, organizations can scale their technology support up or down as needed, potentially resulting in cost savings.- Specialized expertise: Many fractional CIOs have extensive experience and knowledge in specific areas, such as cybersecurity, data analytics, or cloud computing. This can be especially beneficial to companies that need help in a specific area but don't have the in-house expertise to address it.- Access to expertise: Fractional CIOs often have a wealth of experience working with various organizations and technologies, which can be beneficial to companies that may not have the resources to hire a full-time CIO with such a broad range of expertise.- Specialized skills: By working with a fractional CIO, organizations can get access to specialized skills on a temporary basis, without having to hire a full-time employee with those skills. This can be more cost-effective than training current employees or hiring new ones.- Objectivity: A fractional CIO can bring a fresh perspective and objectivity to the company's technology strategy and decision-making process.- Time savings: Having a fractional CIO can save time for the company's leadership team, as they can rely on the CIO to handle specific technology-related tasks and projects, freeing up time to focus on other priorities.It's important to note that while there can be cost savings associated with hiring a fractional CIO, there may also be additional costs involved, such as the fees for the fractional CIO's services, the cost of any additional technology or resources needed, and any other expenses related to the project.JAYCO CIO ServicesJAYCO CIO Services, offers a range of services designed to help businesses improve their technology capabilities and move forward. Providing education, mentorship, and training on new technologies can be valuable for organizations looking to stay competitive and streamline their operations. It is important for businesses to continuously learn and adapt in order to stay up-to-date with the latest technologies and best practices, and the services you offer can be helpful in this regard.At JAYCO CIO Services, Working with executive officers, stakeholders, and IT teams to understand the current state of a business's technology and identify areas for improvement can be an effective way to help organizations move forward and achieve their goals. Providing a report detailing the findings of this assessment can be a valuable tool for helping businesses understand where they need to focus their efforts in order to make progress.Do you have more questions or want to talk to someone about how a Fractional CIO can help your company?

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Why hire a Fractional CIO?

A fractional Chief Information Officer (CIO) is a senior-level executive who provides strategic guidance and leadership for an organization's information technology (IT) initiatives on a part-time or project-by-project basis. There are many reasons why an organization might choose to hire a fractional CIO rather than a full-time CIO: - Cost savings: A fractional CIO can be a cost-effective alternative to hiring a full-time CIO, especially for smaller organizations that may not have the budget for a full-time CIO or for organizations that only need IT leadership on a part-time basis. - Expertise: A fractional CIO brings a wealth of experience and expertise to the organization, having worked with various industries and technologies. A fractional CIO can benefit organizations looking to implement new technologies or enter new markets. - Flexibility: A fractional CIO can be hired on a project-by-project basis, providing the organization with the flexibility to bring in IT leadership as needed. The Fractional CIO can benefit organizations with unpredictable or fluctuating IT needs. - Objectivity: As an external consultant, a fractional CIO can provide objective insights and recommendations that may be difficult for an internal CIO to provide. The fractional CIO can be beneficial for organizations facing complex IT challenges. In summary, hiring a fractional CIO can be a cost-effective and flexible way for organizations to get the IT leadership and expertise they need to achieve their business goals. JAYCO CIO Services As consultants, our mission is to educate, mentor, and help move our clients forward. We believe that people are good at their jobs, and when they fall short, it is usually because of a lack of experience or knowledge. We can help clients with career path training plans and strategic road maps to incorporate new technologies that can help streamline your company. With our flexible engagement arrangements, there is no long-term commitment. Because we believe you should only pay for what you need, so whether you need someone for a few hours a week or on a project basis, we can help you right now. At JAYCO CIO Services, We work with your executive officers, stakeholders, and IT team to show you where you are deficient and supply you with a report to increase your understanding of where you need help. Do you have more questions or want to talk to someone about how a Fractional CIO can help your company? Want More Informaiton? Read the full article

Why hire a Fractional CIO?

Misled or Misinformed: How Business Owners Stunt Their Growth By Listening to Insecure Employees

When you're a leader, you rely on your team members to tell you the truth, So that you can make thoughtful decisions and feel confident that you know what's happening. Most repay your trust with truthfulness. But sometimes, you're faced with an employee who bends the truth too far or lies to you outright. When this happens, it is one of the most challenging managerial situations to meet because it's hard to be sure what's happening or tell yourself that you must be mistaken. I have said for years that CEOs of companies are only as smart as those around them. I still believe this, and I know CEOs are brilliant. However, a company can often have slow or stifled growth because the CEO listened to their employees who were afraid of change for many reasons. We all want to believe that employees are great. As intelligent managers, we think we can spot deceptive behaviors in an interview and background checks. We tell ourselves we have hired excellent and honest workers. Unfortunately, employees sometimes lie or embellish their background and qualifications. Several times, I have seen individuals exaggerate their credentials to negotiate a more prestigious position. Exaggerating to get a job creates a destructive dynamic as they are now the expert and are relied on for this information. In addition, most companies have scaled back staff by reducing costs year after year to meet financial goals, resulting in outsourcing IT departments or running internally on a skeleton crew and having staff resource issues to accomplish new and innovative projects. Still, rarely are employees incompetent; usually, they lack the skills and understanding for the job. Here are Some Reasons Why Employees can Mislead or Misinform You. - They lack the training or knowledge to keep up with new technologies or changes in best practices for your industry. - They lack the understanding of the CEO's goals and how they apply to their department. - They lack the experience to seek out what they don't know. - They are overly burdened with their current workload and lack the motivation to take on more. Being in the IT Industry for over 25 years, change has been all that I have experienced. I started programming in machine language (strictly 1's and 0's) and COBOL, worked on the first PCs and Mainframes, and even saw large companies through the Y2K crisis. There has been lots of change, and I have been excited about each new change as I have learned more and more about it. I also know the perception of "Consultants" that we are bad people only looking to break up employees and create chaos in companies. People hear the word and instantly think someone is trying to replace them. In today's world, unless companies are actively sending their IT staff for training several times a year, there is no way for them to keep up with the ever-changing skills needed in the IT industry. The only way for a CEO to fulfill their visions is to hire consultants to help with long- and short-term projects, especially in a technical arena. Here are some reasons why: - They are consultants for a reason. They are not looking to work for you as an employee; they don't want anyone's job. - They will have experience in a wide range of technology from different companies and industries and keep up with new and emerging trends. - They will have an extensive network of providers they can call on to help clients with projects and fill gaps in knowledge. JAYCO CIO Services As consultants, our mission is to educate, mentor, and help move our clients forward. We believe that people are good at their jobs, and when they fall short, it is usually because of a lack of experience or knowledge. We can help clients with career path training plans and strategic road maps to incorporate new technologies that can help streamline your company. With our flexible engagement arrangements, there is no long-term commitment. Because we believe you should only pay for what you need, so whether you need someone for a few hours a week or on a project basis, we can help you right now. At JAYCO CIO Services, we don't do anything besides CIO services. Right now, we are offering 50% off our CIO Assessment. The assessment is an excellent way to get to know us. We will work with your executive officers, stakeholders, and IT team to show you where you are deficient and supply you with a report to increase your understanding of where you need help. Read the full article

Artificial Intelligence and the Construction Industry

One of the oldest professions globally is construction, but technology and the industry continue to mature. Designing, planning, and building procedures have changed to satisfy modern and technological requirements. Technology has been used more often in construction to increase efficiency, quality, and safety. Artificial intelligence (AI) is the new digital transformation that has made its mark in recent years. Construction professionals have found value in AI to help manage manual labor and crucial assignments. AI is a computer or computer-controlled robot's ability to perform tasks usually associated with human beings. For construction, AI can mean anything from computers that handle large amounts of data to data sensors on the job site and live robots that run physical labor tasks. What is the current state of Artificial Intelligence in the construction industry, and what is its potential? Artificial Intelligence: Construction's New Frontier A study by McKinsey called artificial intelligence "construction technology's next frontier." The McKinsey study found that Artificial Intelligence hasn't gained enough traction in engineering and construction. These sectors need to adopt more AI applications and techniques to compete for more. The report comments, "We predict this effort will lead to allocating more resources to build the necessary capabilities so AI can play a more significant role in construction in the coming years." McKinsey predicts that Artificial Intelligence in the construction sector will be modest at first. The research company notes that a gigantic shift in their report is coming soon. "Stakeholders across the project lifecycle, including contractors, operators, owners, and service providers, can no longer afford to envision AI as technology pertinent only to other industries." Digitization is the tomorrow of the construction industry. Construction companies embracing this transformation and upgrading to utilizing construction management software and AI technologies will have a considerable edge. Here are ways artificial intelligence will support the construction industry. Five Use Cases for Using Artificial Intelligence in Construction - Combine AI into your project management workflow. We all know that tiresome and time-consuming tasks are pain points in construction. PMs must keep track of employees, organize project plans, assign work, and handle numerous other tasks. GMs and subs also have several jobs to complete under their project workflow. When performed manually, these areas result in increased risk, wasted time, and wasted resources. With AI, software for construction management is made possible. Software that can handle ordinary tasks with few or zero errors saves you time. A software system that can drive your project management workflow(s) is essential to boosting productivity. - Increased safeness through AI technology. AI has permitted technology like various sensors on job sites that collect data, which includes structural fitness, location, weather, GPS, and IP cameras. With the integration of AI, these tools can interpret data in real-time and anticipate with a high degree of confidence problems, delays, or malfunctions that may occur. It's a given that construction comes with inherent dangers. The most common risks are people falling, electrical hazards, falling debris, getting stuck somewhere, and hazardous materials. Artificial intelligence helps to improve overall safety on job sites. These systems watch what is going on 24/7 without being distracted, are capable of detecting dangerous behavior, and act as personal security. - AI boosts the pace of project delivery. Autonomous robots are evolving in popularity and becoming more widely used on construction sites. These self-driving machines can carry materials across the job site and haul heavy items without wounding workers. Since the robots are doing all the work, teams can focus their time and attention on more high-value tasks. This kind of technology could save substantial money and make projects move faster. Imagine projects in remote locations that are not easy for workers to access; remote diggers can clear the sites much quicker, working 24/7. - Automate site activity monitoring. Your construction company can make intelligent decisions by automating your activity monitoring and basing decisions on complex data. With Artificial Intelligence, you can capture, track, and classify anything that goes in and out of the job site, whether vehicles, equipment, or people. This data can send alerts to trigger rapid responses by tracking what happens on your job sites. Stakeholders can access this data collected from the job site for real-time updates. - Anticipate maintenance and patterns in structures. One of AI's most notable features is that it is highly effective at scrutinizing historical data to predict likely forecasts of future events. No other current technology can do this. Incorporating AI with construction management software, the app's data can train a machine to spot patterns in maintenance or other locations. Think of an AI system that assesses hundreds of thousands of damage or issue reports for different kinds of buildings over time. Eventually, it could begin to predict when certain surfaces, fittings, or materials will become damaged or worn and alert maintenance teams to this. Artificial intelligence in construction is increasing slowly as part of the digital transformation. Like McKinsey's study, the research company predicted that AI would play a more significant role in construction technology. If your business succeeds, you must embrace the digital revolution and accept new working methods in the industry. At JAYCO CIO Services, we do much more than just planning; with over 25 years of experience in IT management, we can help you with Budgeting, Strategic Planning, Vendor Management, day-to-day operational issues, and so much more. Are you still not sure? Let us assess your company and show how we can help. It’s a simple assessment and covers every aspect of your IT, and you will receive a report which spells out precisely what you need. Want More Information? Read the full article

The Elevation of the Fractional CIO

We deliver fractional CIO and interim CIO engagements at JAYCO CIO Services. Over the past few years, we've seen increased demand for fractional CIOs. Especially in the mid-market range, companies over $250 Million increase by around 60%. The need for interim CIOs has grown steadily year after year since 2016. These are my observations as an industry leader. More and more large and small companies are reaping the benefits of hiring fractional CIOs. Fractional CIOs vs. an Interim CIO? An interim CIO is a temporary person filling in for the CIO. An interim CIO is a short-term position while searching for a "permanent" CIO or while the CIO is on sabbatical or medical leave. In this role, they might be a "placeholder" whose job is to keep the status quo until the long-term CIO takes over. Usually, an Interim CIO will keep ongoing day-to-day issues taken care of or get specific projects done during their time with the organization. A fractional CIO is not an employee. They are consultants hired to work a limited number of hours on an ongoing basis. Companies that cannot afford a full-time, highly paid CIO can bring in an experienced fractional CIO to get the high-level assistance they need. What does a Fractional CIO do? A fractional CIO often plays a more strategic role than a "day-to-day management" role. As day-to-day operations issues arise, the fractional CIO will figure out how to solve the problem using the processes, procedures, and resources. The fractional CIO is not "in the trenches" running the department. Remember, the fractional CIO is not your help desk support. The most frequent tasks for Fractional CIOs are: - Aligning business requirements for IT resources - Set strategies for supporting the business objectives with complementary IT applications and infrastructure architecture - Vendor management and review - Negotiate contracts for the IT group - Be a voice for IT within the organization The first and last bullet points above are essential for smaller companies. What you find in smaller businesses is a gap in communications. The executives and board members are not technology-savvy, while the IT team is more technical and struggles to articulate IT initiatives regarding business goals. Why have Fractional CIOs Become Increasingly More Popular? This popularity is because of two fundamental principles of why companies bring in external resources. Generally will come down to either: - Capacity – The company doesn't have enough people or resources to accomplish its goals. - Capability – The people they have don't have the appropriate skills to achieve what they need to accomplish. Either of these factors could be driving the demand for fractional CIOs. Both of these factors are driving the need for fractional CIOs today. The modern digital transformation of businesses has made companies more aware of their dependency on technology. They want to upgrade their systems, migrate servers to the cloud, or introduce new/emerging technology or any other IT issue but lack the capacity or capability to make it happen. Bringing in an outside expert part-time is the fastest path to success in reaching their business objectives. Benefits of using a fractional CIO: - It saves you money over hiring a full-time CIO. - Closes leadership gaps, offering years of knowledge and experience - It offers an unbiased perspective on your business processes - Provides strategic direction to align technology goals - It gives your business a competitive advantage by identifying outdated systems - Establishes technology best practices to keep you compliant - Offers advice on hardware and software purchases, keeping IT spending in check - Collaborates with company leadership to solidify business objectives - Develops, coaches, and mentors IT staff Some organizations bring in a fractional CIO to complete a transformation as expeditiously as possible. Others will choose to work with a fractional CIO as they know their company is not ready for or capable of handling a rapid change and therefore don't want things to move too fast. A fractional CIO can work for a few hours a week or a few times a month to keep things moving forward at a speed at which the company's culture can absorb their work. What does a Fractional CIO Cost? The short answer here is: A lot less than hiring a full-time senior-level CIO, most of whom earn over $250K per year plus benefits. While rates for a fractional CIO vary, an important thing to remember is that because a fractional CIO is a 1099 contractor, this is a variable cost versus the fixed costs of having an employee. There are no benefits, overhead, or tax issues to factor into the equation. You can determine what you can afford and how much help you can get for that budget. Summary Having held interim and fractional CIO roles in the last few years, I find that clients who have a disconnect between IT and the business are usually best served by bringing in an outside resource as a catalyst to close that gap. While this can be in the form of a W-2 CIO, many "transformational" CIOs aren't content to just run the department once the transformation is complete. Rather than search for another one, it may be better to have your fractional CIO coach an incumbent to grow into the role as part of their engagement. Jay A. Cohen Successful IT Strategist, CEO, and Speaker with over 25 years of experience who is skilled at leading the development, deployment, and support of robust technical solutions, systems administrations, and architectures across multiple industries and platforms, including technology, financial, real estate, healthcare, government contracting and telecommunication services. Offering a unique combination of strategic technology vision, business acumen, and tactical leadership to consistently deliver to plan and bring value to the organization. About JAYCO CIO Services JAYCO CIO Services is a top-rated CIO Services consulting firm based in Central Florida, specializing in strategic IT consulting and business / IT alignment. Companies come to us seeking assistance with their information technology strategy and to source interim CIO / CTO employees or fractional CIO / CTOs. Ready to Get Started? Read the full article

Internet Outage, What's the Next Disruption to Your Company?

Last week, Xfinity had an outage that virtually covered the entire state of Florida. Immediately the conspiracies started flying. Maybe it was Russia or China, or maybe 100 other reasons. The reality is that a cut fiber optic cable disrupted 72% of landline and internet customers, while 26% had a total blackout. In the aftermath, why do we care? If your business has multiple locations connecting to databases such as point of sales, your filesharing in the cloud, or numerous other reasons, your company was disrupted and probably had people sitting around doing nothing. I know many work-from-home employees that lost time and money because they couldn't connect. If you are a frequent reader of my blogs, you have repeatedly heard the drums about disaster recovery. While Disaster Recovery has been around since the mid-1970s, disaster recovery plans became necessary during the dreaded Y2K and became increasingly more important after 9/11. The original plans were to upload backups to a new data center. They later evolved to more complicated plans of disaster recovery to include total major catastrophes, for example, a complete power loss in your data center, a bomb, tornado, or anything that could take your data center down. With cloud solutions, the game changed a lot with High Availability, which made the need for DR plans not as critical in the minds of some leaders. But your plan is only as good as the connection to the cloud. Do you have a backup connection? Today disaster recovery should also include business continuity which is how you will continue your business during and after a significant event. No matter what is going on in the world, from a pandemic to an internet outage, How will your business continue to function and make money. There is no perfect plan. As your business grows, your plan will change and need updating with all your changes. If you don't test, evaluate, verify, and validate your plan, you will never know if it will work for you when you need it. While the State of Florida is reopening and more and more people are getting back to work, any business owner must start looking at the processes and procedures and make sure they are ready for the subsequent catastrophic failure from internal and external sources. If you were recently affected by the Xfinity outage, maybe it's time for you to take a hard look at your company and how to overcome these obstacles in the future. Do you have a Chief Information Officer that can help you? If not, maybe hiring a consultant like a Fractional CIO would be suitable for you. A good Fractional CIO can help you with all your policies, processes, and procedures and map out a roadmap to streamlining your IT in the future. A Fractional CIO, in some ways, can be better for a company, large or small, because they bring with them the experiences of several companies. They also have the connections to get the best of the best consultants as needed to make sure your company is safe, secure, and operating a peak performance. At JAYCO CIO Services, we do a lot more than just planning; with years of experience in IT management, we can help you with Budgeting, Strategic Planning, Vendor Management, day-to-day operational issues, and so much more.Are you still not sure? Let us assess your company and show you ways in which we can help. It's a simple assessment and covers every aspect of your IT, and you will receive a report which spells out precisely what you need. Ready To Get Started? Read the full article

I wonder if you happened to catch the 60 Minutes interview on Easter Sunday called Shields Up or the interview last night with the FBI director, Christopher Wray? Both were great interviews and highlighted the importance of Cybersecurity and the possibility of Russian and China-based Cyberattacks. These countries love Cyberattacks on American-based companies because most companies still believe that no one is looking to harm them. Traditionally, no one wants to invest in solutions they feel won't affect them. I can tell you that it's not a matter of "if" you will be attacked. It is a matter of "when," and it will happen. Before an attack working with a Fractional CIO can save you lots of money in the long run.I know you are skeptical, and you probably should be. Let's talk about that. It would be best if you probably were looking to purchase Cyber Insurance at this time. However, the Cyber Insurance company will want to mitigate their risk by making sure you have minimum security in place. The first part of any solution is pre-planning. Inventory everything and be complete. Make sure everything is on your list. If you use an automated tool to do the inventory, verify everything by doing a Walkthrough of the company. I had seen clients surprised by having equipment for years that they didn't know there and had never used, and they couldn't even remember when or why they bought the hardware. Update all equipment with the latest security patches, including ALL devices attacked on the network, such as printers, computers, laptops, servers, routers, switches, and firewalls. Next, identify all the stakeholders. Every department needs representation and a say in prioritizing areas to be recovered in what order and how quickly. The plan needs to be well documented and put together in a playbook, and disseminated so that everyone knows their role and what exactly needs to happen when there is an issue. Remember that technicians will always leave out steps because they "assume" they are common knowledge and will not forget them. Assume nothing. The Goal of the playbook is to have a replicable process. What do I mean by that? Once you have a written playbook, test it. Following the procedures to ensure no missed steps, transcribe any changes to the plan. You should have several "paper" runs, where you test the playbook on paper with all the stakeholders and then have at least an annually scheduled test to make sure you can recover when needed. Most companies will schedule a test run but always find an excuse not to perform one and then wonder why it doesn't work when needed. Remember I said a fractional CIO could help save you money? Having a technical person like the CIO will know which steps are missing and whether or not the playbook steps are granular enough to be successful. Also, How long can your company continue to run without its technical infrastructure? A day, a week, a month? Knowing this can help set your priorities. At JAYCO CIO Services, we can help manage your technical teams and put together a plan to help you when you get attacked. We offer fractional CIO services and can protect you by helping find the right vendors for Cyber Insurance, Cybersecurity Penetration Testing, and managed service providers. Are you not sure you are ready for a CIO? We have an assessment that we can do with you to point out areas of concern. Remember, Cyber attacks are not going away. They will only get worse and more frequent. Don't get caught off guard. Ready To Get Started?

#CIO #CXO #cybersecurity #FractionCIO #FractionalCIO #vCIO #VirtualCIO

Cyber Warning, Please Heed but Not From Me

I wonder if you happened to catch the 60 Minutes interview on Easter Sunday called Shields Up or the interview last night with the FBI director, Christopher Wray? Both were great interviews and highlighted the importance of Cybersecurity and the possibility of Russian and China-based Cyberattacks. These countries love Cyberattacks on American-based companies because most companies still believe that no one is looking to harm them. Traditionally, no one wants to invest in solutions they feel won't affect them. I can tell you that it's not a matter of "if" you will be attacked. It is a matter of "when," and it will happen. Before an attack working with a Fractional CIO can save you lots of money in the long run. I know you are skeptical, and you probably should be. Let's talk about that. It would be best if you probably were looking to purchase Cyber Insurance at this time. However, the Cyber Insurance company will want to mitigate their risk by making sure you have minimum security in place. The first part of any solution is pre-planning. Inventory everything and be complete. Make sure everything is on your list. If you use an automated tool to do the inventory, verify everything by doing a Walkthrough of the company. I had seen clients surprised by having equipment for years that they didn't know there and had never used, and they couldn't even remember when or why they bought the hardware. Update all equipment with the latest security patches, including ALL devices attacked on the network, such as printers, computers, laptops, servers, routers, switches, and firewalls. Next, identify all the stakeholders. Every department needs representation and a say in prioritizing areas to be recovered in what order and how quickly. The plan needs to be well documented and put together in a playbook, and disseminated so that everyone knows their role and what exactly needs to happen when there is an issue. Remember that technicians will always leave out steps because they "assume" they are common knowledge and will not forget them. Assume nothing. The Goal of the playbook is to have a replicable process. What do I mean by that? Once you have a written playbook, test it. Following the procedures to ensure no missed steps, transcribe any changes to the plan. You should have several "paper" runs, where you test the playbook on paper with all the stakeholders and then have at least an annually scheduled test to make sure you can recover when needed. Most companies will schedule a test run but always find an excuse not to perform one and then wonder why it doesn't work when needed. Remember I said a fractional CIO could help save you money? Having a technical person like the CIO will know which steps are missing and whether or not the playbook steps are granular enough to be successful. Also, How long can your company continue to run without its technical infrastructure? A day, a week, a month? Knowing this can help set your priorities. At JAYCO CIO Services, we can help manage your technical teams and put together a plan to help you when you get attacked. We offer fractional CIO services and can protect you by helping find the right vendors for Cyber Insurance, Cybersecurity Penetration Testing, and managed service providers. Are you not sure you are ready for a CIO? We have an assessment that we can do with you to point out areas of concern. Remember, Cyber attacks are not going away. They will only get worse and more frequent. Don't get caught off guard. Ready To Get Started? Read the full article

Manage The Symphony of Your Company Orchestra

Your business is an Orchestra for which you are the conductor. You can't possibly do everything by yourself in your business, so you hire professionals to be your orchestra members. Every member plays their instruments gleefully, culminating in one beautiful symphony. The same is also true for your IT team. You hire a Chief Information Officer (CIO) to conduct the orchestra of your technology department. One person cannot do all the IT support, development, infrastructure security, cyber awareness training, and more. So how do you get it all to play the symphony effectively let? You hire a CIO or a Fractional CIO. According to payscale.com, a full-time CIO in the Orlando area starts around $180K a year and can go as high as $250K plus benefits. If you cannot afford a full-time CIO, maybe a fractional or part-time CIO is for you. With a fractional CIO, you pay an hourly or a monthly flat fee, and they function as a full-time CIO just with part-time hours. So, what does a Fractional CIO do? A fractional CIO is a senior leader who provides ongoing strategic guidance and offers thought leadership, leads technology development and optimization and provides tailored services aligned to your business's needs. The Fractional CIO helps optimize your budget while still meeting objectives and helping your company realize its key performance indicators. In addition, this leader offers a unique outside perspective, offering best practices in all aspects of technology, including emerging technology, regulations, and security threats. A fractional CIO can often bring a broader perspective and experience levels, complementing a company's internal capabilities. As a fractional CIO, some of the attributes are: - Acts Independently - On your side and in it for the long term; vendor-agnostic; a trusted adviser - They Are Strategic - Work strategically but deliver realistically - They Have Real-World Experience - Experienced technology executive leaders; multi-company/industry perspective - Business-focused - Understanding which business drivers feed technology - C-Suite Liaison - Make your technology vendors/suppliers/outsourcing and staff work together - Value – Improve agility; fractional and flexibility expenditure - Improved Return - Align technology spending based on business objectives, define and measure ROI - Mitigate Risk – Momentary to long-term control The Fractional CIO Role and Responsibilities Businesses need senior technology leaders who understand the business objectives and provide technical direction to support those objectives. So, it's not enough to plan for innovation. Technology leaders must be both visionary and sensible. As insightful executives, we prompt a comprehensive technology agenda to help your business grow from emerging technologies. At the same time, we deal with the realities of the company. We streamline the productivity of your company's current state of technology solutions. We reduce costs and maximize results to increase your technology ROI. The following are typical responsibilities for Fractional CIOs. - IT and business strategies alignment - IT leadership and management - Key performance metrics definition - Performance status reports - ROI evaluation and budgeting - Resource management - Service provider partnerships management - IT and business risk management - Business processes design and optimization - IT technology standards definition - IT governance - IT security and compliance management - Contract review and negotiate - Board advisor Do not be confused! A CIO is a C-Suite executive and is not your IT Support person. Many outsourced managed services providers will try and upsell their services to do support in today's world. Still, these companies have the same entry-level support members trying to do the CIO function in most cases. Think of your CIO like a doctor! When people think of IT, they think of one person doing all things, which is impossible, and like a doctor, you wouldn't go to a foot specialist if you have heart issues. The same is true with IT. You will have your desktop support, server support, network support, and security teams in an organization. If your company does application development, you will have developers and help desk developers, which will all be separate. Still, you need that top executive to know how to manage them. At JAYCO CIO Services, our CIOs have been CIOs in the real world and know how to manage multiple internal and external teams. If you are bewildered or swamped by the quick pace changes in technology, we can help you simplify your strategy. We are offering a CIO Assessment for companies that are not sure where they stand. Our assessment is a two-day consultation to help you understand what areas where your organization excels and where you might be deficient. Contact us today so we can help you get started. Contact Us To Get Started Read the full article

Passwords vs Passphrases vs Multi-factor Authentication vs Adaptive Multi-Factor Authentication

I have been reading a lot about passwords vs. passphrases vs. multi-factor authentication vs. adaptive multi-factor authentication vs. biometrics and how to overcome the never-ending need to keep them secure. I know what best practices will tell me, and the truth is that a different password for every website is not practical, but neither is the same password for all websites. Even still, companies today set different standards for a password. Some want eight characters, others need 12, some want a combination of letters and numbers, and others want to use passwords plus Mutil-factor authentication. In contrast, others want to include special characters as well. For some, this can be maddening trying to keep this straight. As more companies are working remotely, they need to ensure that access to their company data stays secure. Let's look at the different choices because weeding through the multitude of options can be a daunting experience if you don't have the knowledge and expertise to help you understand all the nuances. Working with a fractional CIO can help you understand the risks of each and help you minimize those risks regarding the best solution for you. While passwords, firewalls, and other essential protection techniques are becoming easily 'hackable,' organizations are moving to Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), including voice callbacks, SMS messages, and One-Time-Passwords (OTP)s, to combat the issue. Passwords By now, everyone should be aware of what a password is. It's between 8 and 12 characters long with letters, numbers, and special symbols. These requirements are elementary but too simple as 37% of credential theft breaches use weak credentials. Passphrases In case you don't know what a passphrase is. It is longer than a password, and generally, it is a sentence that you can remember, but it shouldn't be too easy; such as "TheQuickFoxJumped," you should use random words such as "disallow straw unending wielder." There is an excellent generator at www.useapassphrase.com. People remember hard-to-remember passwords that computers can easily hack. Statistically, passwords using eight characters, upper and lower case letters, numbers, and symbols can be hacked in 39 minutes, whereas passphrases using eighteen characters will take 438 trillion years. Multi-Factor Authentication Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is a protection technology that requires multiple authentication methods from disconnected types of user credentials to verify a user's identity for a login or other transactions. Multi-factor authentication connects two or more independent certificates, for instance: - What does the user knows, such as their password? - What does the user have, such as an RSA security token - What the user is, by using a biometric verification such as a fingerprint scan or retinal eye scan, or face ID technology. The goal of an MFA is to create a layered shield that makes it much more difficult for an unauthorized individual to access a target, such as your physical location or computing device or network infrastructure, or databases. If one factor gets compromised, the hacker still has at least one or more barricades to breach before successfully accessing their target. In the past, MFA systems typically depended on only two factors of authentication (2FA). Currently, vendors use the label multi-factor to describe any authentication scheme requiring only two identity credentials to lower the possibility of a cyber-attack. Multi-factor authentication is a core component of an identity and access management framework. Why is multi-factor authentication necessary? One of the most significant shortcomings of a conventional user ID and password logins is that passwords can be skillfully compromised, potentially costing companies millions of dollars. Brute-force attacks are also a considerable threat. Bad actors use automated password cracking tools to guess different combinations of usernames and passwords until they find the correct combination. Locking a user account after a predetermined number of incorrect login attempts can help protect a company. Hackers have multiple other methods for system access. That is why multi-factor authentication is essential, as it can help reduce security risks. MFA authentication methods An authentication factor is a category of credentials used for identity verification. Each additional element of MFA assures that an entity involved in some form or requesting access to a system is who or what it says it is. The usage of multiple authentication methods can help make a hacker's job more problematic. The three most familiar authentication factors are: - Something you know is the knowledge factor. - Something you have is the possession factor. - Something you are is the inherence factor. MFA works by mixing two or more of these factors from those types. Knowledge factor. Knowledge-based authentication commonly requires the user to answer a personal security question. Knowledge factor technologies generally include passwords, four-digit unique personal identification numbers (PINs), and one-time passwords (OTPs). Standard user scenarios are: - Swiping a card and using a personal identification number (PIN); - Using a virtual private network client with a valid digital certificate and logging in to the VPN before acquiring access to a network; and - You provide information to gain system access, such as the mother's maiden name or previous address. Possession factor. Users must have something specific to log in, such as a badge, token, key fob, or phone subscriber identity module (SIM) card. A smartphone supplies the possession factor with an OTP app for mobile authentication. Possession factor methods include the following: - Security tokens are often small hardware devices that store someone's personal information and are used to ascertain that individual's identity digitally. This gadget may be a smart card or an embedded chip in a device, an external drive like a Universal Serial Bus (USB) drive, or a wireless id. - A software-based security token application will generate a single-use login PIN using Soft tokens for mobile multi-factor authentication. The device provides possession factor authentication, such as a smartphone. Usual possession factor user scenarios include the following: - Mobile authentication, where users acquire a code via their smartphone to gain or grant access. Variations of this include text messages and phone calls sent to a user as an out-of-band method, smartphone OTP apps such as authy, SIM cards, and smart cards with stored authentication data; and - You can attach a USB hardware token to a desktop that generates an OTP and login to a VPN client. Inherence factor. Any biological traits can confirm the user's identity. Inherence factor methods include Biometric verification methods: - Facial Recognition - Retina or iris scan - Fingerprint scan - Voice authentication - hand geometry - digital signature scanners - earlobe geometry Biometric devices include a reader, a database, and software to convert the scanned biometric data into a standardized digital format and compare the observed data's match points with stored data. Typical inherence factor scenarios include: - The use of fingerprint or facial recognition like when you access a smartphone; - Delivering a digital signature at a retail checkout like apple pay and google pay; and - Identifying a criminal using earlobe geometry. Pros and cons of biometric use in multi-factor authentication Another suggestion is for user location as the 4th factor for authentication. The pervasiveness of smartphones can help ease the authentication burden: Users commonly carry their phones, and all essential smartphones have Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking, providing credible validation of the login location. You can also use Time-based authentication to establish a person's identity by detecting presence at a detailed time of day and granting access to a particular system or location. For example, banking customers cannot physically use their ATM card in the U.S. and then in Russia 15 minutes later. The use of these types of logical locks helps prevent many cases of online bank fraud. Adaptive Multi-factor Authentication MFA is the present, and adaptive authentication is the future: While MFA could help tackle the security issue in the current strategy, firms looking at a long-term outlook should focus on integrating adaptive authentication. For example, establishing the identity of a user through a step-up OTP might not be the best solution, as it's device-dependent, and anyone may access someone else's a mobile phone or hack into an email account to get the authentication data. However, adaptive authentication takes the user and behavior context more closely than multi-factor, another factor in the authentication process. The authentication is a matrix of variables that provides a user's risk profile. Based on this risk profile, the system generates an additional authentication before the user gains access to the enterprise. While MFA can be a part of the adaptive authentication process, it's exceptionally intuitive and real-time. Other factors such as knowledge-based questions, geo-location, and identity assurance make the authentication system extremely powerful. "MFA is moving away and giving a path to adaptive authentication." Dynamic/real-time security: While MFA follows a set pattern and has specific processes concerning adaptive authentication, the users are a crucial part of the security process. Elements like out-of-band (OOB) authentication through SMS or email and knowledge-based authentication help create a dynamic security system, which is challenging to hack. For example, one of our clients visited another office in a different state from where they usually work. While on the way from the airport, they tried to log into the system, but as the system recognized his geo-location, it denied access. The real-time security protocol required him to respond to questions based on their recent activities, and, after successfully answering, it allowed him to access the system. Large enterprises adopt similar adaptive authentication integration to control employees' access to their designated areas. The staff receives badges or biometrics that have only conditional access. Such accesses might be very intuitive and may deny access to anyone based on how often they visit a particular place or area. Some organizations do not even let members or employees enter OTP or passwords to execute simple tasks like renewing memberships. For example, a prominent retail shop introduced a membership renewal process based on adaptive authentication. The system will validate a customer through certain checks and balances based on the user's shopping behavior in the past and some other details. "Companies are moving towards behavioral aspects of users rather than device-based simple passwords and OTPs." Stringent identity verification: Adaptive authentication helps set up additional identity verification through diverse channels, including integrating hardware such as biometrics. Even though integrating biometrics would mean extra budgeting, it will be worth the investment. Passwords are the most breakable link in your security system; backing it up with additional authentication, especially biometrics, ensures that only the authorized person can access the system. Additionally, biometrics also protects or minimizes risks against data breaches, cyber-attacks, and fraud. Companies often shy away from integrating adaptive authentication due to the perception of a budget hike; some companies provide these products at an economical cost, with even the implementation pricing at a lower spectrum. Further, given the number of breaches, safeguarding assets from theft should be the prime prerogative of organizations rather than cost-saving. "It is better to invest in rigorous authentication methods than face data breaches." Adaptive authentication adds additional security, helping companies protect their data from unauthorized access while allowing users to access the system without frustrating them. However, adaptive authentication is still evolving, and there is still a lot to be done. Still confused? Now's the time to hire a Fractional CIO. JAYCO CIO Services We have plans to make your business more resilient before, during, and after a crisis; this custom-made service gives you access to our experienced consultants, who can equip you with the tools you need to make a robust plan. With our two-day consultation, gap analysis, business impact reports, and a customized business continuity plan, this solution will also provide additional supporting documentation. This report includes Key Supplier Lists, Threat and Risk Assessment Matrices, and response templates to help you react effectively to disruptions in your organization. There is also an annual business continuity review option to keep your plans up to date and accurate. There is no 100% solution and no perfect plan. Having someone accountable like a CIO or Fractional CIO can ensure you are doing the best you can accomplish. At JAYCO CIO Services, we don't do anything other than CIO services. Right now, we are offering 50% off our CIO Assessment. The assessment is an excellent way to get to know us. We will work with your executive officers, stakeholders, and IT team to show you where you are deficient and supply you with a report to increase your understanding of where you need help. Contact Us To Get Started Read the full article

What is the #1 way a company can be successful with social media marketing?

Engaging content will draw more attention from readers and will earn more clicks. Connecting with your intended audience by creating enjoyable and interesting content will make faithful followers and help you grow the company’s online presence. Relatable, high-quality content is what people are looking to read. It cannot be tedious or bland, and it cannot be overly worded. It must seize and hold their attention to draw them in, so they keep reading and interacting. Then, it must deliver on that promise that this is something worth my time. It must be new and creative enough to stand out from all others.Research says that social media is a growing platform for businesses to engage with their customer base. Still, they must have a distinct image and consistently create exciting content that stirs emotion in their audience. People don’t want the same boring content rebranded to a different post. They want excitement. They want cutting-edge information. It must be entertaining as well as understood. Well-written copy that resonates with people engages the audience by speaking to their needs, and makes them feel like it was written just for them, is the critical component to successful social media marketing. Read the full article

Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Planning Tips

Many organizations, reliance on IT means that they cannot operate if their system goes down. In today's world, every company is part of the IT industry and needs to prepare for disasters. If this sounds like your company, and it should, you must have either a disaster recovery plan or a business continuity plan, or both in place, so when the worst happens, you get back online as swiftly as possible. What is the crucial difference between business continuity versus disaster recovery? The crucial difference is when the plan takes effect. Business continuity requires you to keep operations running during the disaster event and immediately after. Disaster recovery focuses on responding once the event has been completed and returning to normal. While both plans incorporate the "after" response, disaster recovery is about getting your company back to where it started before the event occurred. Although both plans overlap, they remain distinct in how they operate. An example would be if a hurricane destroys your office building, your business recovery solution may allow employees to work remotely. This solution may only work as part of emergency response and may not be sustainable long term. Your disaster recovery solution focuses on ways to get employees back in a single location and how to replace equipment. If you haven't written a plan yet, here are tips to help you execute effective disaster recovery and business continuity plan. Both plans have similar steps, but it is a good idea to take each plan separately and see where you overlap to prevent any missteps. Tips On Disaster Recovery Planning Know Your Disaster Risks Start your planning by identifying the most severe threats to your IT infrastructure, such as small things like system failure, staff error, fire, power loss, or more extensive disruptions like pandemics, natural disasters, or government interventions. Identifying these risks can help you put procedures to reduce the risk and determine the course of action needed to recover. If a fire or power loss is a severe risk, it is pretty clear that recovery needs to occur at an alternate site. Prioritize Your Recovery You should prioritize the order in which steps to do for recovery. Which are the most mission-critical services you require (manufacturing, website, email), and in which order do you need to restore these services? Knowing these services can help you create a recovery plan that has a negligible impact on the business. As part of your prioritizing, look at each of your services to determine your Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs). Your RTO means putting a maximum limit on the time you are willing to see that service go offline. Recovery time won't be very long; however, you have to evaluate the likely cause of the disaster and how much work would bring the service back online. Know your enemy and know yourself and you can fight a hundred battles without disaster.Sun Tzu Back-Up Data To Meet Your Objectives Besides RTOs, another factor you should consider is the Recovery Point Objective (RPO). Essentially, this is how much data your company is prepared to lose in a disaster. A crucial part of disaster planning is ensuring data backups are frequently enough to meet your RPO. If you are an eCommerce company and can't afford to lose any sales, your recovery point will need to be back to the time of failure. In which case, you will need a backup plan in place that meets your recovery time objectives. Create a Critical Emergency Response Team An essential element for your disaster recovery plan is to create a critical emergency response team; this will be the person or persons you need to get your system back online. The team may also include third-party contacts to include hardware and software vendors, web hosting providers, and internal staff. This team should also have department heads and corporate officers. Ensure you have a team member for each role, and you should have an alternate for each member in case the primary is out during the disaster because of illness or vacation. This way, you know someone else can step in and undertake the job. Ideally, it would help if you had multiple ways of contacting each team member and making sure your plan is detailed and precise on who is responsible for notifying each member. Avoid Confusion by Creating a Written, Step-By-Step Disaster Recovery Manual. When a disaster occurs, your staff will be under pressure to get your system back online quickly. You have various people, each with their agendas, all trying to carry out their tasks simultaneously. In these stressful circumstances, it can be challenging for team members to communicate effectively, and under pressure in the heat of the moment, they may forget that what they do has to fit into the process. Steps for recovery done out of sequence can put you back to square one. To ensure a smooth recovery during a disaster, you should have a step-by-step action plan in place which specifies the order in which to execute the tasks and who is responsible for carrying out each job. Test Your Disaster Recovery Plan As well as you believed you planned your recovery, in reality, putting your system back online always works out differently. You should test the plan in full, evaluate the results, modify the plan, and retest to make sure you work out any issues in the testing of the plan. Continue the testing, verification, and modification of the plan until it works without a hitch. Have Your Backup Resources Ready and Waiting Always have a complete set of backup resources, such as tape backup cloud storage, in place. If your disaster is a system failure, getting it fixed will be a lot quicker if there is a spare server on-site or a stand-by in the cloud. You don't want to wait for a replacement to be delivered. In addition, you should also have complete documentation available for all the hardware and software you need and a full selection of any tools required. Have Complete Details of All Your Software If you run many different software programs, it can be easy to overlook one when recovering during a disaster. It's best to have a complete plan that gives the details of each application, their configuration, the contact details of the owner or each application, and your contact details. Make Sure You Have an Up-to-Date Network Diagram. A network map will save you hours of work and prevent the trial and error of looking for specific faults or rebuilding a system to help identify each node on the switch and panels. Make sure you document which applications are on each server which server needs applications from other servers upstream and downstream in the configurations. Make The Most of Virtualization. If you have short recovery time objectives and want up recover back to the point of failure, you can benefit by using high-availability cloud and virtual machines, such as VMware, for your system backup. These can offer a far easier disaster recovery solution than physical servers, as virtual machines can automatically restart an application on alternative hardware without data loss or availability. Business Continuity Planning Tips Risks and Potential Business Impact “It's not what happens to you but how you react to it that matters”Epictetus You base your business continuity plan on the business impact analysis, identifying potential risks and vulnerabilities within and outside the business. These risks could be anything from a natural disaster to a data center meltdown or a significant IT disruption to a failure from a critical supplier. Knowing what you might potentially face, you can begin to prevent or mitigate any risk. A strong plan will also use your business impact analysis to reveal the possible consequences of disruption on your business. This analysis will enable you to anticipate its cost, effect on essential business functions, and the time needed to recover. Planning an Effective Response Once you know the different risks and threats your business is vulnerable to, you can formulate an effective plan. A comprehensive continuity plan will take each hazard identified in the business impact analysis and develop the best response strategy to minimize or prevent it altogether. Such as the disaster recovery plan, these detailed plans will describe the action needed and outline who needs to implement it. To ensure a quick and relevant response to any disaster by planning out resources, such as computers, alternative warehouse space, and mobile phones. Roles and Responsibilities To confidently handle a crisis or disruption, the key people in your business need to know their roles and responsibilities. Therefore, a business continuity plan will document which key personnel needs to respond to the disruption. This list of personnel will typically be more senior staff members, but this depends on the risk and business. Once you have identified the right people, their roles and actions need to be clearly defined to react quickly and efficiently. Each resource's steps to follow during disruption should be precise and prioritized ahead of the rest of the team. For instance, if you need a remote office following a disturbance, critical personnel will need to be prioritized when allocating resources such as laptops, tablets, and mobile phones. Communication Clear communication is essential during business disruptions. Effective communication across your organization can reassure team members and give them confidence that the organization is taking adequate steps to recover. External communication is also necessary to liaise with suppliers and customers and minimize dissatisfaction. In preparation, a business continuity plan will typically include a list of key contacts and templated press releases and social media posts. These templates can speed up communication in a crisis and ensure that your staff and external connections are in the loop. More prominent organizations may have to prepare and separate communication plans that provide a comprehensive approach to communicating during a crisis. Testing and Training Business continuity plans are not theoretical – they need to be robust and put into action. The final essential component of a business continuity plan is testing, verification, and validation. Use realistic scenarios to test the plan and your team's response. Doing so can identify missed problems and improve the plan disruption that occurs. Testing, verification, and validation of business continuity plans also help to ensure that crucial personnel understands the plan and their role in it. By team members understanding the plan, the organization can respond quickly and efficiently when a disruption occurs. Raising awareness of the business continuity plan with your more comprehensive staff will also help them understand their role in responding to disruptions. Many companies run regular awareness training sessions during new staff inductions and consider business continuity a critical topic. You will increase company resiliency with more training and testing. Building Your Disaster Recovery or Business Continuity Plan If you want to develop a Disaster recovery plan or a Business Continuity plan that helps you anticipate, assess, prevent, prepare, respond to, and recover from business disruptions, our 360-degree Business Continuity Solution could help you enhance your business's resilience. Our plan will make your business more resilient before, during, and after a crisis; this custom-made service gives you access to our experienced consultants, who can equip you with the tools you need to make a robust plan. Our two-day consultation, gap analysis, business impact reports, and a customized business continuity plan this solution will also give you additional supporting documentation, which includes Key Supplier Lists, Threat and Risk Assessment Matrices, and response templates to help you react effectively to disruptions. There is also an annual business continuity review option to keep your plans up to date and accurate. There is no 100% solution and no perfect plan. Having someone accountable like a CIO or Fractional CIO can ensure you are doing the best you can accomplish. At JAYCO CIO Services, we don't do anything other than CIO services. Right now, we are offering 50% off our CIO Assessment. The assessment is an excellent way to get to know us. We will work with your executive officers, stakeholders, and IT team to show you where you are deficient and supply you with a report to increase your understanding of where you need help. Read the full article

Pro-Tips on Creating the Right IT Budget

Budgeting that awful "B" word that no one enjoys. Large enterprise companies have the time and resources to put together very detailed budgets for their organization. Smaller and medium-sized companies have more significant resource challenges. Creating a detailed IT budget cannot be done in a vacuum. It takes much input from all the department heads, the CEO, CFO, department heads, and of course, the IT team. The more information you can gather beforehand, the more detailed you can make your budget. If this is the first time you create a budget, get a report from accounting on all the IT expenses for the last two years. Knowing the past costs will help you understand your recurring and capital expenditures. Like all aspects of your business, your technology infrastructure needs a budget that describes real spending money to reach your goals. More prominent companies do this every year, but smaller companies tend to spend as they need without thinking about their investment returns. You need a clear budget every year! Depending on the lifecycle of your infrastructure, some years, you may not make changes to your budget. In other years, you may need to drastically increase or decrease the amount of money you spend on IT. Follow these steps to create the perfect IT budget for your small and medium-sized business's short-term and long-term goals. First, you need to review last year's IT budget! If you didn't have a budget last year, have accounting run a report of all the IT expenses you had for the previous two years. If you had an IT budget the previous year, review it to determine where you need to make changes. If you spent money on large purchases like new equipment (desktops, laptops, servers) last year, you probably wouldn't need to repurchase those items for the next few years. Also, use last year's budget to find periodic expenses. Things to consider in reviewing last year's budget Understand where your money went! Where was the money spent, was there an overage on any line item, was there a shortage? Were some lines items overestimated and some underestimated? You will need to adjust these line items. In some companies, if you consistently overestimate what you need, you run the chance of not getting approval for essential things. Pinpoint areas for improvement Identify areas where you can save money to increase your company's return on investment. Do you need servers on-site where a cloud server may save you money? Do you need new desktops or laptops when you can use virtual desktops? Know the cost of recurring expenses! Some IT costs don't change much from year to year. Some everyday IT expenses include: - Cloud storage space - Renewing software licenses - Domain registrations - Content management systems Your regular costs may be different from other companies. Look closely at your business expenses to identify items you haven't included in past budgets. Take Inventory of your IT Hardware and Software! Take inventory of your IT equipment and the age of the devices. Once you have a completed list, you can decide when to do a technology refresh to update or replace your equipment. You have some discretion regarding how often you refresh your IT equipment. Most companies will replace desktops and laptops every 3 to 5 years. A computer that is five years old may seem to work well, but it probably can't keep up with the speed and workload of newer models. Keeping old equipment could lower the productivity of your employees. Other pieces of technology that you need to update include: - Servers (about every three years) - Wi-Fi routers (every 4 or 5 years) - Mobile devices (every 2 or 3 years) If it's time to upgrade your IT equipment, you need to create a line for that expense. If you don't need any upgrades, you can reserve your money when the time comes. Make sure when creating an inventory! When doing inventory, make sure you note all of the following: - Hardware must include the date of purchase, location, purpose, expected end-of-life date. - Software must contain the number of licenses for each application, the application version, the purpose, which department uses the application, who needs access to the application, the expiration of licenses. Depending on the size of your company, you might opt to buy inventory management software. Talk to your Employees and Managers! Employees and managers will better understand what upgrades are needed than you do. After all, they're the people who need to use equipment and applications every day. Many managers and employees will know about an emerging technology or new software that will improve their job production. So, talk to your managers and teams to learn more about what they would like to see in next year's IT budget. If you hear identical requests from many people, consider adding a line to your budget. Don't feel obligated to fulfill the fancies of a few people. Only add the expenses to give you a good return on your investment. Plan for the Future! Having a good understanding of your IT infrastructure's current state and future state will help you decide on the budget for the next 3 to 5 years. Budgets should include a line for research and development to improve your company's ability to compete with your competitors. Depending on your industry, this will include things like: - Sending the IT Teams to IT conferences to learn about emerging technology - Hiring developers to update proprietary software - Hardening your IT infrastructure security from the latest cyber threats Researching and planning for your future needs will make it easier for you to predict your IT expenses over the next 3 to 5 years. IT Budgeting The perfect IT budget ensures that you spend money wisely while updating your small and medium-sized business technology. You can take a stab at making an IT budget without outside help, but you run the risk of missing an essential line item. If you haven't made an IT budget before, you may need a Fractional CIO to help you find hidden costs and make accurate predictions. We are ready to help you create a solid IT budget that accurately accounts for your expenses. There is no 100% solution and no perfect plan. Having someone accountable like a CIO or Fractional CIO can ensure you are doing the best you can accomplish. At JAYCO CIO Services, we don't do anything other than CIO services. Right now, we are offering 50% off our CIO Assessment. The assessment is an excellent way to get to know us. We will work with your executive officers, stakeholders, and IT team to show you where you are deficient and supply you with a report to increase your understanding of where you need help. Read the full article

Progressive Web Apps explained

The all-in-one web solution for all devices Progressive Web Apps (PWA) are websites on steroids, they can empower your business to do more with less effort. If you want a website and apps that work on any device without the need to register with app stores then a PWA is for you. PWAs have been widely adopted by major vendors to support their business online, Uber, Pinterest, Twitter, BMW and Starbucks are a few examples. Why should you care? It costs more to create and maintain separate websites and apps for each platform, a PWA can do it all. There are millions of native apps and it is hard to get yours noticed, PWAs are indexable - you can use SEO to get them found. That's it - save time and money whilst increasing your market share. Features of a PWA PWAs are web apps developed using a number of specific technologies and standard patterns to allow them to take advantage of both web and native app features. For example, web apps are more discoverable than native apps; it's a lot easier and faster to visit a website than to install an application, and you can also share web apps by sending a link. - Discoverable - the contents can be found through search engines. - Installable - available on the device's home screen or app launcher. - Linkable - you can share it by sending a URL. - Network independent - works offline or with a poor network connection. - Progressively enhanced -it's still usable on a basic level on older browsers, but fully-functional on the latest ones. - Re-engageable - it's able to send notifications whenever there's new content available. - Responsively designed - it's usable on any device with a screen and a browser - mobile phones, tablets, laptops, TVs, refrigerators, etc. - Secure - the connections between the user, the app, and your server are secured against any third parties trying to get access to sensitive data. Contact us to learn more about how progressive web apps can help transform your business. This article has been shared by BAS Technologies, expert database and application developers who convert your dreams into reality. Check out our YouTube channel to see demos and more. Read the full article

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