August 4, 2020

Last Updated on January 12, 2024

Who isn’t looking to get creative about cost-cutting these days? The key is to think beyond stopgap measures and find approaches that will preserve your productivity and agility for the longer term. Sometimes an outsider’s view can be helpful.
To get some real-world, right-now insight from someone who is solving resource problems all day every day for SMBs, we invited Jose Ciriaco to join The Virtual CISO Podcast. Jose is Director of Sales and Marketing at Tekscape, an innovative IT MSP in Manhattan. Jose is all about helping clients reduce costs now while positioning them for competitive gains at the same time.
Like Jose, host John Verry, Pivot Point Security’s CISO and Managing Partner, is also focused on helping SMBs find their footing and move forward amid current challenges. Two experts are even better than one, as this podcast episode clearly illustrates.

Both Jose and John recognize the value of virtual or fractional staff.

Virtual resources can be a business-saver for firms that cut their staff too deep and now are shorthanded in core areas. They’re also a big bonus for companies that need expert help and fresh strategic ideas, but don’t need expensive full-time employees in those roles.
“Rent-a-tech” or other typical consultant or outsourcing roles aren’t the only way to virtualize staff. Indeed, most businesses have already investigated and implemented these kinds of “Captain Obvious” (as Jose calls them) outsourcing scenarios.

Start by identifying the task sets or business areas that need the most attention now. From there, break the unmet needs down into projects that you can get your arms around and clearly articulate. Then find a way to delegate those projects to one or a few trusted vendors that can field a “virtual team” and will stand behind them.


Once you have fractional resources in place, you can execute, operate and tune the project plan(s). As Jose notes, playing with a virtual team is often easier (not to mention cheaper) than dealing with full-time staff: “You buy the bench, and then you don’t have to put all your eggs into one individual who’s going to be magically able to somehow get everything together for you.”
Jose also advocates doing everything you can to negotiate “win-win” in areas like hourly rates and payment schedules. Vendors today need to be flexible and go the extra mile for their valued customers. The result should be affordable costs, straightforward management of fractional staff and increased productivity that drives agreed outcomes.
If you need to quickly add some “more” to your “doing more with less” scenario, you’ll find this episode of The Virtual CISO Podcast Jose Ciriaco extremely worthwhile.
To hear the episode in its entirely, along with the many other (frankly, amazing) episodes in The Virtual CISO Podcast series, click here.
If you don’t use Apple Podcasts, you can access all our episodes here.