vCIO & IT Consulting in Connecticut
A vCIO is a virtual chief information officer: the technology strategy seat most businesses under 250 people can't justify hiring full time. Yours comes with managed and co-managed IT, builds your roadmap and your yearly budget, and argues your side inside ASG. They work for you as much as they work for us.
- ✓A virtual CIO with managed and co-managed IT
- ✓Your advocate inside ASG, by design
- ✓Monthly check-ins and quarterly strategy, as standard
- ✓A yearly technology plan and budget
- ✓Your Technology Alignment Manager and vCIO review all 317 checkpoints
- ✓Security risk and written policy, in business terms
The strategy seat, filled
What A vCIO Actually Is
The definition first: vCIO stands for virtual chief information officer, meaning the person who owns technology strategy without owning a payroll line. Yours learns your company, your goals, and your people, then turns that into a plan you can read, a budget you can approve, and a risk picture you can act on.
Your Advocate At ASG
Here's the unusual part. Your vCIO works for you as much as for us, so when your priorities and ours don't line up, somebody inside ASG is arguing your side of it. That's what keeps the roadmap tied to your business instead of our catalog.
The Cadence
Our standard is monthly check-ins, quarterly strategic meetings, and an annual technology plan. The rhythm scales with the size of the business, so a 25-person firm and a 200-person manufacturer don't get the same calendar. Either way, nobody at your office has to remember to schedule the conversation.
A vCIO, or a full-time CIO?
Businesses between 20 and 250 people usually need the judgment of a CIO a few days a month, not a salary and a parking spot. Here's the honest trade.
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| A vCIO from ASG | Hiring a CIO or IT director | |
|---|---|---|
| What it costs | Included with managed and co-managed IT | A senior salary, benefits, and a seat |
| The bench behind them | Solution architects, engineers, and your TAM | Whatever that one person knows |
| Ramp-up | A documented environment from day one | Months spent learning your environment |
| Range of experience | Drawn from the 110+ businesses ASG services | The handful of environments they've worked in |
| Who does the work after the plan | The same people who wrote the plan | You still have to go find a team |
| When they're on vacation | Your pod keeps running | Strategy stops until they're back |
| Getting the uncomfortable answer | They're your advocate inside ASG by design | Depends on the person and the politics |
What else you get
The Roadmap
Year one runs out about a year, because that's as far as anyone can honestly see into a business they've just met. By year two we're often planning years out.
Yearly Budget
One number you can take to your accountant, built before you need it: what's getting replaced, when, and roughly what it costs.
Risk & Policy
Your vCIO makes the recommendations, writes the policy, and puts your risk in front of leadership in business language instead of a vulnerability report.
The Assessment
Your environment measured against a 317-point assessment across 46 categories, every item reviewed and dated by your TAM and your vCIO before you see it.
Ongoing Alignment
Your Technology Alignment Manager keeps the environment matched to IT best practices and cybersecurity checks, auditing quarterly for most clients.
AI Strategy
Your vCIO makes sure you're having the useful version of the AI conversation: what's worth automating, what isn't, and where the risk sits.
Solution Architects
Behind your vCIO is our design desk, the solution architects who size and design the harder projects. That bench, without paying a firm to learn your environment.
Vendors & Renewals
Your vCIO tracks the contracts and licenses you carry, what renews when, and which vendors are worth keeping. Chasing them is our call, not your office manager's.
One-Off Projects
Due diligence on an acquisition, one-off strategy work, or replacing the software the whole company runs on. Your vCIO already knows the environment.
Reviewed twice before it reaches you
The Technology Assessment is where strategy stops being a conversation. Your environment gets scored across 46 categories, every finding written in business terms rather than jargon, with the urgent items separated from the ones that can wait until the budget allows. Your Technology Alignment Manager reviews and dates every item, your vCIO reviews and dates it again, and then the two of them walk the findings through with you. That last step is the difference between a report and a plan.
- ✓46 categories scored, from backup documentation to wireless encryption
- ✓Every item carries a priority and a plain-English business impact
- ✓A dated TAM review and a dated vCIO review on all 317
- ✓Reviewed with you, then turned into the roadmap
What proactive looks like on paper
Every ASG client's environment gets measured the same way, and the findings get written in business terms rather than jargon. Here's what one line item looks like, with every part of it labeled.
- The questionasked the same way of every client
- Does a policy exist documenting which IT systems are backed up and which are not, and has the client signed off on it?
- Why it matterswritten before anyone looked at your environment
- What isn't being backed up is the half that gets forgotten. A signed document means nobody discovers the gap during a restore.
- What we foundyour TAM's finding, in your environment
- Restore testing is documented, but the coverage document hasn't been signed off. Ticket opened to get it in front of the client.
Your vCIO's note: Carrying this to the next strategic meeting. Coverage is fine; the signature is what's missing, and the client should be the one to confirm the list.
Then reviewed with you. Findings go through your regular check-in with your TAM and your vCIO, which is where they turn into work instead of a document.
- The questionasked the same way of every client
- Is there internet access with automatic failover to an alternate source?
- Why it matterswritten before anyone looked at your environment
- With how much of the business runs over the connection, an outage on a single line can stop work everywhere until the carrier fixes it.
- What we foundyour TAM's finding, in your environment
- No failover line present at this location.
Your vCIO's note: Raised with ownership, and they've decided against a second line for now. Documented as a known, accepted risk rather than an open gap. Revisit at the next annual plan.
Then reviewed with you. Findings go through your regular check-in with your TAM and your vCIO, which is where they turn into work instead of a document.
Sample line items, reproduced from the real report format with the client and their environment removed. Wording is representative, not any one client's assessment.
Multiply that by 317. Your Technology Alignment Manager and your vCIO each review and date every one of them, and then the findings get walked through with you on your regular cadence. That last part is why it becomes next year's roadmap and budget instead of a PDF nobody opens.
When did your IT provider last call you first?
Most IT waits for the phone to ring. ASG comes to you before there's something to call about. Here's the mechanism behind that, in writing.
Quarterly Risk Audits
Your Technology Alignment Manager (TAM) audits your environment against IT best practices and cybersecurity checks, quarterly for most clients, keeps your documentation current, and flags risk while it's still cheap to fix.
A vCIO Who Owns It
Your virtual CIO writes the policies, builds the rolling technology roadmap, and reviews risk directly with your leadership, so IT decisions get made ahead of the budget cycle instead of after an incident.
Findings Walked Through
That audit is a 317-question assessment across 46 categories. Your TAM and your vCIO each review and date every item, then the findings get walked through with you. Written in business terms, and they become next year's plan.
We'll be the most proactive partner you've ever worked with.
Decisions made a year early
Questions, answered straight
Still have a question about your IT? An engineer answers in about four rings.
Let's scope IT Consulting & vCIO for your team
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