Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville
IT services in Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville: a vCIO at the management table
Lease a bigger space or stay put. Replace the business software. Say yes to a customer who wants proof of security. Those calls belong to management, and each one has an IT side that nobody at the table can size up. The vCIO module from OKTO Solutions brings that person in, from Trois-Rivières, about 148 km away.
A vCIO is a named IT advisor who ties a company’s technology to its management’s decisions. OKTO Solutions offers it to SMBs in Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville as a module on top of a managed services plan, for ten workstations or servers and up. The advisor documents, recommends and ranks priorities. Management decides. OKTO’s office is in Trois-Rivières, about 148 km away.
Who does the management of a Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville business ask about technology?
In Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville, a business with no IT director still makes technology decisions. It simply makes them without an advisor. OKTO Solutions offers its services to SMBs in the city from Trois-Rivières, about 148 km away, and fills that role with a vCIO module. A named IT advisor learns the company’s file, then acts as management’s point of contact. The advisor translates a business objective into a technical project, and the reverse. Projects are ranked by risk and by the objective they serve, recommendations are put in writing, and the decision is left to management. The module complements a managed IT services plan, takes at least ten workstations or servers and comes in three levels: Essentiel, Standard and Stratégique. At the Standard level, strategic review meetings are held twice a year; at the Stratégique level, quarterly. It is an advisory role, and daily troubleshooting stays with the support team. OKTO has neither an office nor an advisor stationed in Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville.
Where it starts
Which management decisions have an IT side?
Nearly all of those that commit the company for more than a year. Here are three that come back often.
A move or an acquisition
New premises or a company you just bought means a network to build, accounts to merge and contracts you inherit. The technical question tends to show up once the lease is signed.
A customer’s requirement
A large customer asks for a security measure before renewing. Somebody has to say what is in place, what is missing and in what order to fix it.
A contract coming up for renewal
The business software, the Internet line, a vendor’s service. Left unwatched, these agreements roll over by themselves, and nobody knows their exit terms.
In each of these cases the advisor does not choose for you. The options go on the table. How the module works is laid out on the vCIO module page.
The person
Why one advisor who knows your file?
Because explaining the company again at every meeting wears everyone out. A vendor called once a year starts from scratch: how many workstations, which business software, who holds the access. A named advisor has those answers before walking into the room.
The advisor knows the equipment, the contracts, the projects under way and the constraints. The advisor also knows where management wants to take the company over the coming years, because technical priorities follow from that and not the other way around.
Out of that picture comes a list few small businesses have ever seen in writing: the fragile dependencies. The single server. The vendor nobody could replace. The backup that was never tested. The administrator access three people share. Each one gets a place in the plan, or a written reason to wait.
The documentation stays with you. If the advisor changes one day, the file does not leave too.
A sample client file: the profile of the equipment, the fragile dependencies moving into the plan, then the date of the next meeting.
The roles
Who does what between management, the vCIO and support?
The module replaces nobody. It adds a voice that was missing and leaves everyone else where they belong.
| Role | What it does | What it does not do |
|---|---|---|
| Management | Sets the business objectives, picks among the options, approves the budget | Track end-of-life dates and technical detail |
| The vCIO advisor | Keeps the IT master plan and the roadmap, ranks priorities, prepares the technology budget, records recommendations | Carry out the work or answer support requests |
| The support team | Handles the everyday: a computer that will not start, a full mailbox, a silent printer | Decide on investments |
| Your internal team, if you have one | Stays in charge of its environment, with a framework and a plan | Settle everyone’s competing priorities alone |
Vendor management and project management are available at all three levels of the module and billed as used. Monitoring, patching and backups belong to managed IT services.
The calendar
What rhythm does a vCIO mandate follow?
The first two months go to documenting and writing. After that, meetings sit on the calendar instead of being driven by emergencies.
- Month one: the starting picture. Equipment, licences, contracts, vendors, security, backups. And above all, management’s business objectives.
- Month two: the IT master plan. Current state, risks, gaps and ranked priorities.
- Month three: the roadmap and the budget. Projects are placed in time, over a 12 to 36 month horizon depending on the level.
- Strategic review meetings. Twice a year at the Standard level, quarterly at the Stratégique level, billed as used at the Essentiel level.
- Revision. A new site, an acquisition, an incident: the roadmap follows those changes instead of sleeping in a drawer.
The decision
How does a technical question become a management decision?
Take an ordinary question: the file server is reaching end of life. Put to management as is, it has no answer. Put to a salesperson, it has exactly one, the salesperson’s.
The advisor rewrites it. What are the options? What does each change for operations, what risk does it carry, how much effort does it take? The order of projects follows risks and business objectives, not the order in which vendors happened to call.
Management chooses. The trade-off is recorded with its reason, so the decision still stands when someone reads it six months later and asks why the other road was not taken.
When a technology investment is on the agenda, some organizations invite their advisor to the board or management committee meeting. That is available at all three levels of the module and billed as used.
One question, three options weighed on impact, risk and effort, one option retained and signed.
The ground
Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville, about 148 km from our office
Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville is in Montérégie and belongs to the Longueuil agglomeration, along with four other cities. Autoroute 30 and Route 116 meet at the southwest edge of the city.
We have neither premises nor an advisor stationed in Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville, and everything starts from Trois-Rivières. For an advisory role, that distance weighs less than it does for a repair: a vCIO’s work lives in documents, in meetings set in advance and in data our management tools bring back without a trip.
The vCIO module is added to one of our Base, Standard and Complet plans. Its three levels are a separate range, not to be mixed up with the plans. The Complet plan includes an emergency line. For a company with several addresses, see IT services on the South Shore. Every area we cover is listed on the service areas page. To describe the decision on your mind, there is the contact page.
Questions and answers
Your questions about the vCIO in Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville
Do you have an office in Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville?
Does the vCIO make the decisions for us?
Do we need a managed services plan with OKTO first?
Our company has twelve workstations. Is that enough for a vCIO?
Can the advisor sit in on our management committee?
We already have someone in charge of IT. Does the vCIO replace that person?
A decision coming up at your management table?
Tell us which one: a move, software to replace, a customer setting conditions. We will tell you which level of the module fits.
Reviewed by Antonio Pazzi, president of OKTO Solutions · updated