We’ve covered this topic once before, but we thought it was appropriate to revisit it and expand on our thoughts.
Simply put, the role of a Chief Technology Officer (CTO) is to make your company better. CTO’s can help optimize your operations, which in turn improve your bottom line and keep you competitive. As we’ve mentioned, hiring someone in-house can be cost-prohibitive, but leveraging an outsider’s expertise--who’s not a full-time employee but has industry experience--can be game-changing for your business.
Finding Opportunities To Improve Processes And Efficiencies
Many companies have gaps in their operations that can create bottlenecks.
One of a fractional CTO’s focused areas of responsibility is finding opportunities to improve processes and efficiencies through leveraging the technology that’s the right fit for your business. They use a strategic approach to prioritize improvements based on the best ROI to effect change today and in the long-term.
With a plan in place, a CTO can observe how implemented changes in both technology and processes are working. The CTO keeps track of improvements to ensure they continue to contribute to improved efficiencies.
Identifying Roadblocks And Bottlenecks
CTO's identify the roadblocks and bottlenecks common in businesses. One situation that comes to mind is when one person is wearing too many hats.
By freeing up the time of someone like the CFO, for example, who was managing finance and technology, the CTO allows the CFO to be more effective in their fiscal management and strategy. CTO's can assign tasks to the right people to improve the throughput of projects. As a result, everyone understands their roles and what they need to do to keep things moving forward.
A New Mindset
A fractional CTO often brings a new mindset to a business.
They seek opportunities for positive change that goes beyond technology and impacts how a leader manages their business. This can be achieved through an overall assessment that illuminates opportunities that translate into efficiencies from the top down. Often a fractional CTO can bring ideas to your business that have worked for different companies. This is an advantage that comes from their experience.
Reevaluation
Reevaluation of technology and systems allows you to understand what your system can and can’t do.
A fractional CTO for your manufacturing company, for example, can position you to remain competitive by identifying delivery shortfalls from production lines, warehouses, and transportation to how a product is delivered to the end-user.
The reevaluation process also looks at your current service providers and new technologies that may bridge gaps in your current business processes. The fractional CTO from Results Technology Group will provide you with an unbiased view of your current and potential future state. Once your future state is well-defined, technology decisions can begin to be made that support your strategic vision.
Leveraging Technology
An outside CTO can work with you to stay compatible with leading-edge technology. There are two ways of doing this: 1) leveraging new technologies that others (competitors) aren’t using yet or 2) working with your existing technology and helping you understand how to better utilize it.
Hiring a fractional CTO has the potential to open doors you never knew existed to move your company forward.
Results Technology Group provides technology services to our clients with best-in-class software selection, project management, and business technology leadership services. To learn more about our fractional CTO expertise and capabilities, schedule a free 30-minute technology discussion. Visit our blog page for more content, and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.