Is your small- to medium-sized business (SMB) looking to hire a Chief Information Officer (CIO)? If so, do you know what to look out for? Before you even post your job opening, you should be familiar with the key aspects that make a great CIO. To make things less stressful for you, here are some of the top qualities you need to consider when looking for a CIO.

Fits in
Before anything else, you need to be sure that the person you’ll hire will be a perfect fit for your company's culture.

Having high morale in the workplace is key to business success. When employees feel happy and appreciated, there is better productivity, improved work attendance and timeliness, less staff turnover, and increased customer loyalty.

To boost employee morale, some companies go so far as to leverage IT. Here’s why.

Any conversation on business development ultimately mentions digital transformation, but it's easier said than done. A digital workspace isn’t something that happens overnight. Rather than being a single-phased project, it’s a long-term process that helps your business adapt to the constant pace of technological and market change.

Digital transformation has been one of the biggest buzzwords in recent years. As companies struggle to become more efficient in an increasingly complex and competitive market, there’s more pressure than ever to modernize and do more with less.

But there’s far more to establishing an effective digital workspace than upgrading IT systems.

While much of the emphasis these days is on going paperless, the average office worker still prints 34 pages per day. Although eliminating paper from your business processes should be a top priority to reduce costs and become more environmentally friendly, there’s no doubt most businesses still need a reliable printer.

As customers become more demanding and the competition gets fiercer, businesses struggle to keep up. Workflow automation is a key component of achieving success in a time when organizations are wasting billions of dollars annually due to mismanaged processes and wasted productivity.

Legitimate organizations aren’t the only ones investing in technological innovation. Cybercrime also continues to evolve as new vulnerabilities are uncovered and data becomes evermore valuable.

Fortunately, exploring the trends of the last couple of years allows us to make educated predictions about the threats of tomorrow.

Virtually every modern business depends on its data and technology infrastructure, meaning a backup and disaster recovery plan is no longer something that’s just nice to have — it’s critical for ensuring business continuity. While no one likes to dwell on the likelihood and potential impact of a disaster occurring, having a backup strategy will give you peace of mind, and here’s how you build one.

Outsourcing your IT management and support isn’t a decision to take lightly. Make the wrong choice, and you could end up greatly increasing risk. But make the right choice, and you can expect to increase efficiency, reduce overheads, and make your business more adaptable to constant change in the market.