Comparing live pricing and terms from 400+ carriers and platforms
Most vCIOs work for the MSP that sells you the stack, which makes the roadmap a sales document. We have no stack to sell, so we source the vCIO firm, put them in front of you, and stay involved as your side of the table.
A vCIO is the technology executive most mid-market companies need and cannot justify hiring. It is a real discipline — quarterly leadership reviews, a three-year roadmap, budget ownership, board-level translation — and it is not what we do. We are a sourcing and oversight advisor, not a fractional executive practice, and we are not going to pretend otherwise to win the work.
What we do is the part that is genuinely hard from where you sit: knowing which vCIO firms are any good. There is no rating body, the market is full of MSPs offering a free vCIO as a way to lock in the managed services contract, and by the time you can tell the difference you are two quarters and a roadmap into it.
So we bring in the best firm for your situation, industry and size. You contract with them directly and they bill you directly — we do not invoice you for it and we do not mark it up. We stay in the room because the roadmap they build will inevitably recommend carriers, circuits and platforms, and someone in that meeting should be looking at those recommendations on your behalf rather than on a vendor's.
90-minute sessions with your CEO, CFO and IT director — where you are and what to fund next.
Sequenced, budgeted and tied to your business strategy.
Bottom-up annual budget, CapEx versus OpEx, and a return case on significant investments.
Risk posture and a documented plan your auditors and insurers will accept.
Assess, integrate and de-risk technology stacks across deals.
Technology decisions explained in language your board can act on.
For Ohio companies, vCIO services look like this month to month: a board and CFO room, a vendor stack, and a renewals calendar. If those three are not happening, you do not have a vCIO.
Sits with the CEO and CFO and translates technology into a budget the board can vote on: what to fund this quarter, what to wait on, what to kill.
Owns the list of tools, licenses, and overlapping products. Who is on it, what each one does, and whether two of them are the same job.
Circuits, SaaS, support contracts, the MSP agreement. Dates, notice windows, walk-away terms — raised ninety days out, not the week the term rolls.
Two or three that actually fit your industry, size and complexity — with the reasons each made the list and what we would watch for in each one.
The single most important question about a vCIO, and the one nobody asks. If the firm also sells managed services, their roadmap has a destination before it is written.
When the roadmap calls for circuits, voice or security, we source that independently across 400+ providers — so the recommendation and the fulfilment are not the same party.
If the reviews stop happening or the roadmap quietly becomes a quote, that is our problem to raise, not yours to notice.
Companies looking for vCIO services in Ohio usually get one of these. They are not interchangeable.
You contract with the firm in your name. They do the month-to-month work. We source them, stay in the room, and bill you $0 for the advisory.
A full-time executive on payroll. Right when scale, complexity, or the board wants an employee in the chair. Not our job. We will say so in week one.
Works for the firm that sells you the stack, so the roadmap is usually a sales document. We will tell you that is what it is. The longer distinction: advisor vs MSP.
We work out what you actually need in the seat. Some companies need a full fractional CIO; plenty need a good MSP and one honest quarterly review, and we will say so. Same Talk. Compete. Stay. sequence as every other engagement.
You meet a shortlist. We tell you what we like and what concerns us about each, including the ownership question, and you choose.
They run the engagement and bill you directly. We stay in the quarterly reviews and source anything the roadmap calls for, independently.
No deck, no discovery engagement, no obligation. You deal with the principal from the first call.