CTO as a Service (CaaS)

CTO-as-a-Service (shortly CaaS) is an avenue where companies can employ third-party CTO consulting services.  CaaS enables companies to still harness the skills and experience when they hire a virtual CTO but at a more manageable cost, paying only for the services they need.

Types of CTO Services

CTO as a service is not a one-size-fits-all solution. CTO-as-a-Service providers are able to help businesses and organizations identify the type of CTO service they need. There are 4 major types of CTO services available in the market:

  • Full-time CTO services provide dedicated resources and expertise in helping your organization address technological issues. Having a full-time CTO consulting services provider onboard ensures that technical issues, plans, and technological processes are discussed and managed proactively in real-time.
  • Fractional CTO services are focused on specific areas of technological issues or processes, and share responsibilities with the in-house experts in addressing these. Startups and SMEs find Fractional CTO services providers more helpful in ensuring timely and effective development and troubleshooting issues and processes.
  • Part-time CTO services can be construed as a hybrid of full-time and fractional CTO services; part-time CTO services cover all the responsibilities but only for part of the time. Employing part-time CTO services enable you to acquire the skills and services needed to address technical issues and processes for only certain necessary timeframes, without the burden of thinking how to sustain such service all the time.
  • Interim CTO Services are employed by organizations during transitional periods in between hiring a new CTO to replace your old CTO. Providers of such services ensure that your technological processes and issues are still handled during this period and also help with your hiring strategy for a new CTO.
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What Makes a Great CTO-as-a-Service

But how would you know if the CTO service you are employing is effective? What are the features and functions of a must-have CTO service? The scope and approach of a CTO service significantly impact a business or organization, so it is essential to know what to expect of such a service.

Great CTO consulting services can:

  1. Design software architecture and the system of tools and processes that best fit your needs.
  2. Set technological strategies and implementation plans.
  3. Participate in and manage organizational products and production roadmaps.
  4. Support, lead, manage and hire tech talent for organizations.
  5. Design, plan and oversee quality control and quality assurance tests and troubleshooting.

Why companies do not employ outsourced CTO services:

  1. Not all businesses or organizations can afford to hire such an executive service. Businesses such as startups or more compact organizations that have limited budget and number of personnel would do away with employing such services.
  2. Having a part time CTO onboard or on-hand is not necessary for a successful venture to the tech market. Companies such as Snapchat, Lyft, Youtube, and SlideShare found success with non-technical executives and founders.
  3. The current company or organizational structure is already able to handle the work of CTOs, therefore no longer necessitating the CTO advisory services.

When You Should Hire CTO Consulting Services

There are several cases where organizations have found CTO as a Service helpful for their organizations.

  • Have an idea for an app, a tool, or software for the organization but lack the technical skills to make it a reality.
  • A business-oriented organization or company that branches out or explores potential integration of technology into your products and in need of hashing out details and plans to be presented to the organizational committees or prospective investors.
  • You outsourced a product or app development, but need technical skills to evaluate in-depth their work.
  • Your current organizational tools and processes or tech products are outdated and require immediate upgrade
  • You do not require a full-time or in-house CTO as of yet and are looking for ways to cut operational costs and maximize the flexibility of your personnel.
  • You need an independent and unbiased advice or review of tech processes and issues.

What to Look for When You Hire Virtual CTO Consulting Services

Knowing what to expect with a CTO service does not necessarily translate to the actual CTO or person that the business or organization will directly work with. It is also important to set a standard for the type of CTO personnel that will eventually be hired to work with the business or organization. What do you need to look for in a virtual CTO provider?

  • Organizational familiarity and understanding. Outsourced CTO services providers need to be in line with the mission, vision, and goals of the businesses to have a productive professional relationship geared towards achieving the goals of the organization.
  • Openness to change and technologically forward-thinking. Technology and our consumption and utilization of technology constantly changes and evolves. Having a great understanding and expert skills in adapting the modern and latest technology into business processes is highly recommended, but it would be even better if they can adopt changing technology and technical trends effectively.
  • Having a realistic and balanced approach to technology adoption. Adopting technology can be expensive and more trouble than it is worth. CTO services providers should be able to weigh the necessity of adopting technology or a technological process versus the cost and financial impact of such a change and come up with a plan that most benefits the organization.
  • Extensive work experience and technological knowledge. CTO is a high organizational position that requires comprehensive work experience as a certified chief technology officer. A CTO services provider needs to have knowledge of past, current, and potential technological trends and how to adapt them to solve real-world issues.
  • Capacity to design and develop business and technological plans. CTO consultants need to have the skills to not only focus on solving technical issues but also aim to support your organization in designing, developing, and implementing a technological plan that can enhance your organization and its processes.

How Much Does CTO-as-a-Service Cost?

A great benchmark for estimating how much CTO consulting services can cost is to look at average annual CTO salaries. Below is a table showing the average salary of CTO across various countries worldwide.

  • The US –  $169,699
  • The UK – $127,902
  • Switzerland – $148,096
  • Poland – $112,000
  • Ukraine – $96,000*

*Ukrainian salaries are provided based on Mobilunity’s Recruitment Team research on the local job markets. All salaries are net and do not include the service fee (in case of hiring on a dedicated team model). The salaries are provided for comparison purposes and could be not entirely accurate. Contact us to know the exact cost of hiring a developer corresponding to the required parameters.

The figures above illustrate that CTO services in countries such as the US and Switzerland are all high-paying, above $100,000 per year, and can be costly. This shows that it would be most cost-effective to narrow your searches for remote CTO services to countries like Poland and especially Ukraine.

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Outsourced CTO Services in Ukraine

Hiring CTO managed services may be among the most helpful steps that companies can take in addressing tech issues or strategy development. Great CTO advisory services can support companies in developing effective and high-quality software development.

As per our cost benchmark, Ukraine shows to be the country with the most cost-effective CTO services salary. This is in no way an indicator of low-quality work. Ukraine is home to numerous expert and highly-skilled tech professionals as well as a great number of high-quality outsourced CTO services providers. Among such service providers is Mobilunity. As a tech service provider, Mobilunity can provide:

  • Dedicated CTO managed services, be it fractional or full-time CTO services
  • React JS consulting and react-native CTO remote consulting and development services
  • Tech product design, development, and maintenance services
  • Highly skilled and experienced consulting and development services

Get the Most From CTO Consulting With Mobilunity

Mobilunity is a well-known Ukrainian IT services provider that has been operating on the global outsourcing and outstaffing market for more than 10 years. Thanks to our dedicated approach to work and professionalism, we’ve worked with 40+ companies located all over the globe, including a Canadian web development agency 3e Joueur and a French restaurant booking platform ZenChef. Mobilunity is proud of our ability to help our clients scale their development teams. One of successfull cases is esurance:

Therefore, if you need a reliable partner to help you find and hire the best IT experts in the field with strong skill sets and remarkable expertise, get in touch with Mobilunity experts and start building your dream team now.

Looking to hire CTO consulting services to grant technical advantage to your product? Get in touch with Mobilunity to hire an experienced CTO!

All salaries and prices mentioned within the article are approximate NET numbers based on the research done by our in-house Recruitment Team. Please use these numbers as a guide for comparison purposes only and feel free to use the contact form to inquire on the specific cost of the talent according to your vacancy requirements and chosen model of engagement.

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