Today CIOs fight a constant battle to simultaneously reduce the costs while improving service levels from their IT departments. The time needed to re-evaluate a division’s internal processes often exceeds the time available to do so. Others have high expectations of CIOs to extract the most essential pieces of information from analytics reports and streamline the office’s workflow at the same time — all while also handling daily operations. A busy CIO doesn’t have time to conclusively decide which of their department’s processes really needs the most improvement.
In a “TechTarget” report, top CIOs were asked about their biggest workplace challenges. The answers included the velocity of change, balancing strategic priorities with regulatory demands, and prioritization.
Velocity of Change
The velocity of change is at the forefront of most CIO’s minds as they constantly feel like they are behind with learning new technology and don’t have time to stay up-to-date with new changes. Inadequate internal processes can result in a reactive approach to tasks such as system maintenance, making it difficult to focus on more important, complex projects.
Balancing Strategic Priorities
Many IT managers find it tough to deliver the results that their company needs within critical deadlines. Balancing strategic priorities with regulatory demands is something that many managers struggle with. Also, a common problem for IT departments is that highly skilled employees have to spend their time on critical, but low-level tasks instead of the more important aspects of the business. IT departments find their hands full with so much work that there is no time left to analyze their strategic business processes.
Prioritization
The “prioritization” dilemma creates stress for most CIOs. In the midst of a mountain of data, they don’t have enough visibility to be able to easily decide which aspects of their analytics reports they really need to focus on first to improve their performance.
The Solution to All Your Challenges
When a lack of time is an obstacle, a valid option for CIOs can be to hire an independent IT advisory and outsourcing agency to lighten their load. The ideal agencies to work with offer advisory services, giving an in-depth analysis of how to improve business strategies and process designs to more effectively utilize the skills of the existing workforce. Managers know what’s not working, but they frequently can’t see the primary reasons why when they’re heavily involved in stressful daily operations.
When an experienced IT-consulting agency evaluates a department’s business processes, CIOs can get the necessary perspective to boost the performance of their entire operation much faster. Additionally, managers gain more time to concentrate on more strategic goals for the company by subcontracting the mundane, routine IT operations out to another agency.
Take a moment to evaluate your internal processes. What percentage of the time would you consider your staff to be in reactive vs. proactive mode? Is your list of change requests and new IT projects growing and are delivery dates pushing out? Are your support staff keeping up with routine maintenance and patching? If you feel your staff are overburdened or have difficulty maintaining a proactive focus, reviewing your operations with an experienced IT-consulting partner can provide insight into how outsourcing can improve the efficiency and productivity of your organization.
If you are in over your head with improving services within your IT department, consider contacting an experienced advisory service and outsourcing provider. With its focus on middle-market companies, ContinuServe performs a broad assortment of IT maintenance, support and security tasks. To learn more about affordable middle-market outsourcing, contact us at “continuserve.com”.