Business Needs and Challenges:

• Assess IT Governance and identify gaps in policies and procedures
• Assess IT Infrastructure standards and IT compliance to best practices
• Assess current IT roadmap and assist with prioritization

• Immediately back-fill senior executive-level IT leadership
• Oversee the IT team of 20+ FTEs
• Get several stalled or delayed projects back on track
• Manage the impact caused by COVID-19
• Help identify a new, permanent IT leader to fill the VP of IT function

Solution:

• Infracore vCIO – IT department review
  • Under the oversight of our vCIO, Infracore engineering efforts were brought in to review the current state of key infrastructure components, such as the Microsoft 365 and financial software platforms. Our vCIO quickly absorbed the current state of the infrastructure and the status of existing projects. The vCIO began prioritizing efforts, developing an IT roadmap for approval by the client’s executive team and board.
  • Team cultural issues were quickly identified: IT team members accepted more work than reasonably expected to deliver. Employees felt pressure to be "team players" and to help the company achieve its expansion goals. As such, they didn’t feel they could negotiate deadlines, or the specific conditions of satisfaction regarding requests. Too many initiatives were being started and were stalling out as newer requests were made of the team.
  • Our vCIO met with each team member to review their commitments and capacity and helped prioritize their assigned tasks. Some tasks were able to be delegated, while other tasks were renegotiated, deprioritized or removed completely.
  • The breakdowns in project deliverables prior to Infracore’s involvement led to a low level of trust between IT and business leadership. Infracore was able to help each group understand the requirements and expectations, which greatly improved the relationship. With the sharpened focus of a smaller number of commitments, overall team productivity increased - and so did the job satisfaction of the IT staff (which further helped reduce department turnover).


• Technical project execution
  • Additional Infracore technical resources were added on a per-project basis. This occurred when the client’s IT team lacked the necessary skills, or additional capacity was needed to meet critical deadlines.
  • Our vCIO and project engineering teams had to remain agile as the COVID-19 pandemic started soon after we began working with the client. Adapting to the new remote work reality required an urgent reprioritization of initiatives and an all-hands-on-deck approach, with Infracore resources working seamlessly with client IT staff to keep the client’s growth plans on track.


• vCIO – Senior IT leader identification and onboarding
  • Infracore helped the client’s executive team clarify the responsibilities and key performance indicators for the new VP of IT. Our vCIO assisted in the screening and interview process, and was involved in the final hiring decision of both the VP of IT and the Director of Cybersecurity roles.
  • Once hired, Infracore built an onboarding plan to successfully transition oversight of the department to these new team leaders.

End Results:

Infracore’s VCIO stepped in at a pivotal moment for the company and helped lead a large IT team through both a period of rapid expansion and the COVID-19 pandemic. We also helped the client address dysfunction and broken trust within the IT team, which improved team performance and brought in engineering talent to get several stalled projects completed. We played a key role in identifying individuals to fill the permanent VP of IT and Director of Cybersecurity roles and managed their onboarding. The VP of IT and Director of Cybersecurity were both very satisfied and felt set up for success because of Infracore’s efforts.