CTO as a Service – Your Technology Strategy in the hands of Experts

Technology has become essential for most (if not all) companies operating today. The way you leverage Technology may have a strong impact on the success of your business.

Some of the questions that an organization commonly has to answer are:

• Can the business strategy be accomplished with Technology?
• Does the usage of Technology in the organization generate business value?
• Do we mitigate the risks associated with using Technology?
• Is there a direct link between Technology resources & processes and enterprise goals in line of strategy?
• What is to be achieved from the leveraging of Technology resources?
• How do we measure the maturity and effectiveness of Technology roles, resources, and processes?
• Do stakeholders have confidence in the organization’s Technology Resources?

All questions above as well as many others like these can be answered with the right Technology Strategy & Technology Governance process in place.

Since they fall under the responsibility of the Executive Committee, the person representing Technology in this Committee is the Chief Technology Officer (CTO).

The role of the CTO is critical for the alignment of the business strategy with the technology strategy. They will make decisions for the overarching Technology infrastructure that have to closely align with the organizational goals. CTOs guide the current and future endeavors of the organization, examining the short and long-term needs, as well as ensure the most efficient and appropriate use of the Technology resources in the organization.

The CTO is the highest technology executive position within a company, thus the rightful and most beneficial usage of Technology in a company is highly dependent on his excellence.

After helping hundreds of companies shine through Technology, Pentalog came up with a solution to address the need of having the right Technology Leadership – CTO as a Service.

Choosing CTO as a Service can simplify access to the hard-to-find Senior Technical Leadership needed to connect business goals with technical solutions while remaining up to date with industry good practices. By collaborating with company leadership, this role will work to build and implement a technical roadmap aligned with delivery and growth goals.

With CTO as a Service, you can rest assured on the following expectations:

• Technology maturity assessment

The CTO is capable of assessing where the company stands regarding a competitive digital company.

They ensure the company knows where it stands from a technology innovation perspective, legacy, etc. It doesn’t mean the CTO needs to be an expert on every technology. Rather makes this a business continuity aspect addressed regularly by the team.

The CTO will also perform an assessment of the company using Pentalog’s Maturity Models, which will cover the following areas:

• Infrastructure & DevOps
• Architecture
• Engineering Practices
• Governance
• Skills
• People pulse
• Security
• Testing
• Turnover

• Technology strategic positioning

The CTO will help the executive management team form a vision that guides the acquisition, allocation, and management of IT resources so it can help fulfill the organizational objectives. This is mainly to make sure that the business strategy can be realized through technology and that technology investments are aligned with business.

• Technology Governance

The CTO will be an enabler for Technology Governance to raise efficiency, and make decisions based on the maturity of all areas, measured through the right Technology Governance processes.

A proper Technology Governance process is critical to ensure that Technology and its resources are used effectively, efficiently and generate business value.

The CTO may establish processes and metrics for the efficient use of the Technology resources in the company, such as ways to measure the maturity curve of the organization’s best practices, a process to evaluate the efficiency of the roles present in the IT department of the organization, promote agility and shorter time to market by establishing decision-making authority at the right levels of the IT organization, and similar other Technology Governance aspects.

• Technology Decision Log

Similar to the ADR (Architectural Decision Record), every Technology decision should also be thoroughly documented and reviewed. The CTO should create a Technology Decision Log item for every significant decision that affects the company, describing the decision, its context, and its consequences and should go through a Technology Decision review process.

This is essential to do a smooth transfer of responsibilities to the next CTO.

• Technology Roadmap

The CTO will build a Technology Roadmap that makes it easier to prioritize and organize Technology initiatives and work items. The Technology Roadmap helps prioritizing the objectives and requirements into a high-level strategic plan that will inform all downstream decisions.

The Technology Roadmap is useful to both stakeholders looking at the Technology deliverables and for communicating the strategic plan with the right constituents.

• CTO Legacy

A very important question we start with early-on this journey is “What do we leave behind?”. Our CTOs put high emphasis on documentation and transparency of all the activities we work on, establishing documented processes, using well-known industry-approved practices and tactics so that when the time comes to hire the next CTO, the transition is as smooth as possible, and the new CTO continues to build on the right foundation.

We consider it an essential part of our mission to establish the required policies so that the next team that will take over the Technology Office finds the legacy reasonable enough to grow on it instead of rebuilding a new foundation.

What companies do we target with this service?

This service is designed for companies of all sizes and phases – from small start-ups to big organizations, from looking for a long-term established CTO to helping with a transition of a leaving CTO until the right replacement is found (a situation well-known by us, where we can provide even more help, for example with our CTO Assessment for Hiring).

This service has been highly appreciated in CTO transitioning roles.

Want to know more?

Have a look at CTO as a Service on Pentalog’s Website or reach out to us directly to see how we can help.