XChange: Midmarket CIOs Look To VARs For Innovation

The midmarket CIOs said they were forced to scale back their IT organizations considerably after the 2008 economic meltdown and are now looking to partners to help them drive business innovation. Key to getting a job with these midmarket powers is truly innovative solutions that help them grow their business rather than me-too solutions or drinks and dinner, the CIOs said.

Sterling Infosystems, a New York-based leader in employment screen checks, had an IT staff of 21 in in 2008 and now has nine IT employees, said Andrew Madejczyk, vice president of Global Technology Operations. But his IT budget has gone from literally zero to $1 million in the wake of several mergers and acquisitions.

"We've gone down the path of doing more with less," he said. "Now we're looking to VARs to help us develop next-generation applications." The days of throwing IT staff at a problem are over, said Madejczyk. "I'm counting on VARs to provide us that expertise."

Michael Skaff, CIO for the world-renowned San Francisco Symphony, said his IT organization also faced belt-tightening pressures and is now "looking to scale back up" by relying more heavily on VARs for a expertise in areas like digital rights management and content solutions that showcase the Symphony. "We're really leaning on VARs and vendors to solve problems," he said. "We don't have the staff anymore to do it all ourselves."

"Budgets are very tight," Skaff said. "More than ever we are being pushed to be more efficient. A lot of IT budgets are moving from capital expenditures to operating expenses. That's an uncomfortable change for some organizations."

Randy Reed, vice president of information services for Securities America, an Omaha, Neb.-based investment advisor that supports 1,500 investment professionals nationwide, said his IT organization underwent cost-cutting and now has shifted IT employees into project management roles. He said IT budget strings are loosening but he is looking to VARs to help provide the "agility and flexibility" to suceeed in a new era.

One area where Reed is looking for help is on a large scale cloud-mobile computing project that has just been approved to put solutions in the hands of the whopping 90 percent of the Securities America financial advisors using Apple iPhones. "The cloud thrust is going to come with mobile computing first," he said.