Everything you need to know about CTO as a service

A technical leader is a precondition for startups and organizations. At the initial stage, a senior developer or founder with a strong engineering background is sufficient to lead the software development team and make technology-related decisions. However, at the point of expansion, every startup and organization requires a technically sound individual who would spearhead the projects and take managerial decisions to achieve organizational goals and then they search for a 'CTO'.

CTO is an acronym for Chief Technology Officer, whose responsibility is to lead the Technical team and R & D team of an organization. He will identify the technological needs, short term & long term goals of the firm, utilize the capital investments of the organization judiciously and wisely to achieve the business objectives.

Do you have a great idea for an app, but you don't have any idea on its implementation?

Have you developed your first app within a low budget, and now you realize that the design is insufficient for the next level of your product?

Do you need personnel with years of technical leadership to help you meet with investors, assess your vendors, develop technical roadmaps, and maybe to even code up your first dream app?

Do you want someone to be flexible and not have to be tied to long-term contracts? Do you need to pay only for what you use?

Many of the business tycoons or successful entrepreneurs have faced these situations at the infant stage of their organizations. In order to tackle these circumstances, a few business persons are providing consulting services to budding startups or scalreup firms. One of those services is CaaS -CTO as a Service.

Why hire a Virtual CTO?

Having a tech-savvy person as a cofounder is not always possible for every startup or SMEs. Most of these technology-centered firms have little or no money to acquire a full-time CTO. Another reason is that startups have a few resources in their bundle with no differentiation of positions. The same resource can be working as the manager and developer while the founder who is a non-technical personnel can deal with the sales and marketing operations. As for the leading SMEs, there might be no strict requirement of a permanent full-time CTO. Hence they chose to hire a part-time or Consulting CTO i.e. a Virtual CTO when the situation demands. Hiring a Virtual CTO helps startups to develop, expand and troubleshoot their technical team and bud their ideas to fruition. This serves as a cost-effective option for startups or SMEs.

CaaS stands for CTO as a service and refers to hiring a part time CTO. CaaS provides the assistance of a technical consultant to focus on technology-driven challenges and envisage the vision, roadmap and timelines in line with your business targets.

CaaS helps to achieve the following objectives:

Develop a business plan by estimating costs and timelines for the company's technology development and deployment
Provide expert suggestions on the development platform for your business
Helps you determine whether to outsource development by hiring dedicated engineering teams or build an in-house team
Establish quality standards for software architectures, coding conventions, documentation requirements, and quality assurance processes at the very beginning of your project
Ensure your business scales with growth and survives investors' technical due diligence reviews
Provide technological recommendations for the app you have already developed but the technology is out of date
Provide advice on tech-related issues

Key Benefits of CaaS

CaaS delivers the value of CTO while eliminating the cost incurred by hiring a permanent CTO. Referring to a CaaS will also help you to address the technology-related issues faced by your company.

The main benefits of hiring a Consulting CTO or Fractional CTO are listed below:

Business performance growth
Deliver immediate value through experience at a lower cost
Develop your own leadership & talent development plan
Keep Investors happy with long-term financial planning
Reduced operational risks and improved risk mitigation strategy
Oversee the industry market trends and transform the business

Skillset of a CTO

CTO plays a key role in the venture of an IT company. He acts as the face of technology for the company. In addition to the technological knowledge, he must possess the following skills to become successful in his role.

Leadership Skills:��CTO should be an efficient leader to motivate the employees, fill confidence and inspire them to achieve business goals
Communication Skills: He should be able to express the business ideas, vision and goals to his team members as well as stakeholders who are from non-technical backgrounds. Good communication skills will enhance the team's effectiveness
Decision-making: Being the tech-leader of the company, a CTO should be able to make important decisions regarding technology selection, resource allocation, outsourcing services and changing the third-party vendors
Strategic Thinking: CTO should have the ability to forecast the future needs of the company in terms of short, medium and long term goals. He should be able to lead the team in the right direction with a common goal in mind
Mentoring: CTO's responsibility is to provide the team with mentorship. He should look out ways in helping the team to grow both with their code and professionally
Willing to learn: He should be up-to-date with the emerging technologies & trends and should possess skills such as curiosity and willingness to learn new technologies
Time Management: He should have good time management skills since he is responsible to set tasks and deadlines for the team

Most of the CTOs have started their career after pursuing an engineering degree in software development or computer science. Apart from these skills, it is necessary to gain experience working on positions such as developer, technical lead and architect. Strong technical knowledge, experience and interpersonal skills can create a perfect CTO and bring success to your business.

Roles and Responsibilities of a Virtual CTO

A Virtual CTO provides CTO services for those companies lacking technical knowledge, decision-making capabilities but have a good idea and are not aware of its implementation.

CaaS responsibilities in startups/ SMEs usually include the following:

Define a clear roadmap and avoid costly aberrations
Build software architecture
Advice on the upcoming technologies and select the proper technology stack for the product
Develop corporate strategy regarding infrastructure and capital to achieve business goals
Design and optimize the workflow for the company
Mentor the team and help them to improve their skills
Helps in building the team by hiring new resources
Fill technical gaps while company searches for a right candidate
Focus on the target markets of the business and deploy IT projects to support customer experiences
Able to solve the technical related issues

Conclusion

With the expansion in technology, it is becoming difficult to make choices- you have a smaller budget to work with and more options for how to spend it. Investing in technology requires an appropriate strategy and leadership to have a positive impact on the organization. Complex decisions, such as choosing a CMS or hiring technical staff, is something business executives will need to make. In many cases, such decisions can have far-reaching effects on your company's competitiveness, cost structure, and bottom line. That's why an increasing number of companies are hiring part time /remote chief technical officers to keep an eye on the big picture and to bring success for the company.