vCIO & IT Strategy

Executive technology leadership, without the executive salary.

Every growing business reaches a point where technology decisions are too consequential to make reactively. Corewell Technology provides a virtual CIO: a senior advisor who learns your business, builds a three-year technology roadmap and budget, maintains the risk register, evaluates vendors and software, prepares you for growth, audits, and acquisitions, and sits with your leadership team every quarter to decide what comes next.

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Three-year roadmap and annual technology budget
Quarterly business reviews with leadership
Risk register and compliance calendar
Software and vendor evaluations without a sales agenda

What a vCIO does

Understands your business goals and translates them into a technology plan. Maintains a roadmap that sequences projects over three years and a budget that funds them without surprises. Keeps the risk register current and reports on it. Evaluates software, cloud platforms, and vendors when you need to choose, and negotiates on your behalf. Reviews your cyber-insurance and compliance obligations annually. Prepares the technology side of due diligence when you raise money, acquire, or sell. And meets with leadership quarterly with a written review of what was done, what was found, and what is recommended.

Why businesses engage one

A full-time CIO costs several hundred thousand dollars a year and is not needed full time by a 60-person company; a managed service provider without strategic leadership delivers tickets but not direction. The vCIO sits between: enough seniority to advise the CEO and CFO, enough involvement to know the environment, and a fraction of the cost. Clients use the role to stop buying software twice, to time hardware spending with cash flow, to pass customer security reviews, and to walk into an acquisition with documentation instead of surprises.

How Corewell delivers it

Your vCIO is a named senior member of our team who joins at onboarding and stays. In the first quarter they produce a current-state assessment, risk register, and initial roadmap. Each quarter they review ticket trends, security posture, project progress, and spending against budget with your leadership, and update the roadmap. Between reviews they are available for decisions: a software purchase, a vendor dispute, a hiring plan that needs technology, a customer questionnaire. The vCIO is included in fully managed agreements and available separately for co-managed and advisory clients.

What leadership receives

A roadmap on one page that the whole leadership team understands. A technology budget by quarter with no unplanned capital requests. A risk register with owners and dates. Vendor and software recommendations with the reasoning written down. Due-diligence-ready documentation. And a standing quarterly meeting where technology is discussed as part of the business rather than as an interruption to it.

What is included

vCIO & IT Strategy: what you receive

Technology roadmap

Projects sequenced over three years, tied to business goals and reviewed quarterly.

Budget planning

Annual and quarterly technology budgets with lifecycle and project costs included.

Risk register

Security, continuity, compliance, and vendor risks tracked with owners and dates.

Vendor and software evaluation

Independent selection and negotiation for the platforms your business runs on.

Quarterly business reviews

A written review with leadership: results, findings, and recommendations.

Due diligence readiness

Documentation and posture prepared for financing, acquisition, or sale.

Questions

Common questions

Is the vCIO the same person every time?

Yes. Your vCIO is a named senior member of our team who learns your business and stays with your account. Continuity is the point of the role.

Does the vCIO sell us Corewell services?

The vCIO recommends what the business needs, and the roadmap is yours to approve. Where a recommendation involves Corewell, it is priced transparently and you are free to take it elsewhere. Our interest is a client who stays for years, which means recommendations have to be right.

Can we engage a vCIO without managed services?

Yes. Advisory engagements are available for companies with internal IT or another provider, typically as a monthly retainer with quarterly reviews and on-call access.

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