Starting a role as a vCIO can be both exhilarating and daunting. Understanding the details of vCIO services and identifying your initial steps are critical to your success. This guide will demystify the vCIO role, highlighting its pivotal goals and outlining a process to excel in delivering value to your clients.
The Goals of vCIO Services
Enhancing Client Retention: At the heart of exceptional MSPs is the ability to maintain and nurture client relationships. Reducing client turnover is paramount; otherwise, efforts in acquiring new clients merely offset losses rather than contribute to growth. While vCIO services alone aren’t a solution for client retention, they play a significant role in solidifying client relationships through strategic support and alignment.
Deep Understanding of Client Needs: A vCIO’s mission is to deeply understand the client’s business objectives, technological needs, and strategic direction. This ensures that the solutions proposed not only address current requirements but also align with the client’s long-term success trajectory.
Risk Identification and Compliance Guidance: Identifying potential IT risks and guiding clients through the maze of relevant regulatory compliances are crucial aspects of a vCIO’s responsibilities.
Standardization and Optimization: A key objective is to standardize and optimize the client’s IT infrastructure in alignment with your MSP’s stack and standards. This standardization is not about conformity but enabling high-quality, scalable service delivery that benefits both the MSP and the client.
It’s Not About Sales
Being a vCIO isn’t about selling or hitting commission targets. It’s about genuinely wanting to see your clients succeed. Leave the sales pitch at the door and focus on building real, lasting relationships.
The vCIO Yearly Process
A systematic and repeatable process is vital for delivering great vCIO services. Here’s an annual outline to guide your engagements:
Strategic Alignment: Kick off with a meeting to uncover your client’s objectives and explore how IT can propel their success. This dialogue, held with executives and department heads, will illuminate both strategic goals and operational needs. Read more about the Strategic Alignment Meeting here.
Audit: Conduct a thorough review of the client’s IT infrastructure to identify discrepancies with your MSP’s standards. This audit, typically executed by another team member, sets the stage for a roadmap that addresses gaps and aligns with the client’s strategic objectives.
3-Year Roadmap and Budget: Develop a comprehensive plan and budget covering a 3-year horizon. This approach has proven successful in enabling clients to strategically plan and invest in IT initiatives that support their goals.
Presentation and Collaboration: Present the roadmap and budget in an interactive session, collaboratively determining which initiatives to prioritize. This engagement ensures alignment and commitment to the proposed path forward.
Quarterly Follow-Up: Maintain regular check-ins to monitor progress, adjust plans as necessary, and ensure that the strategic objectives remain in focus. As the project manager of this plan, your role is to keep the initiatives on track and adapt to any changes in the client’s strategic direction.
It’s important to align this process with your clients’ budgeting cycle. Read more about this here.
Stay tuned for Part 2!
Simon is the President of S3 Technologies, a leading Canadian MSP he co-founded in 2003. He built and scaled the vCIO team which eventually lead to him co-founding Propel Your MSP in 2018 to help MSPs with their vCIO services.
