A new position has been created at CodeBlue allowing the company to provide a ‘Virtual CIO' to its SMB customers.

Lee Madden, formerly with Dimension Data, will fill the CIO role for CodeBlue itself but will also offer advice to smaller businesses which can't afford a dedicated IT manager.

Ian Funnel, CodeBlue general manager, says the idea behind the initiative was to deliver to SMBs the cost-saving advantages a CIO usually provides larger organisations.

"Big companies are still spending 40% less per seat on IT than smaller companies do,” Funnel says, "because big companies have the systems and processes to manage their IT in an organised way.

Madden himself adds, "Smaller businesses often can't justify hiring a full-time CIO. They struggle with IT strategy, and they lack a senior IT expert who is consistently optimising all of the different technology layers, from software applications to server environments to security.

"The Virtual CIO will help customers extract maximum value from their IT investment.