Virtual CIO/COO
Strategic technology leadership for distributors who need more than IT support
Most technology decisions in a distribution business are operating decisions wearing a different hat. Which system to fix first, what to budget, when to move, and who owns the result. Narium works those decisions with you, so product keeps moving while the plan gets made.
A help desk answers tickets. It does not answer what to do next.
A virtual CIO, or vCIO, is the person who sits in your technology decisions with you. Some distributors call the same role a fractional CIO. The work does not change: priorities, tradeoffs, budgets, and a roadmap somebody can actually execute. Narium delivers virtual CIO services as an engagement rather than a hire.
Your provider closes tickets, patches servers, and keeps the network up. None of that tells you whether to replatform the ERP this year or next, what a warehouse systems refresh should cost, or which process to fix before you open another branch. Those questions usually sit with the owner, in between everything else.
This is not a substitute for your leadership team. It is a technology counterpart to it, led by a founder who came up inside electrical wholesale and distribution and can tell you what a decision will cost you on the floor.
The engagement
What a vCIO engagement covers
Six workstreams. Which ones open first depends on what your operation is carrying, and that is the first conversation.
Technology planning and budgeting
What the next twelve to thirty-six months should cost, in the order the operation needs it. Capital against subscription, what can safely wait, and what is quietly compounding while it waits.
Cloud against on premise
A real comparison for your building instead of a slide. What moves, what stays, what your ERP and warehouse systems tolerate, and what the connectivity at each branch can actually carry.
ERP and systems priorities
Which system decision comes first when several are overdue, and where an upgrade, a reimplementation, and a process change are genuinely different answers to the same complaint.
Workflow and process alignment
Where the work crosses systems and loses time. Order entry to pick to ship to invoice, and the handoffs that currently exist only in somebody's head.
Operational documentation
The runbook your team does not have. How a process is supposed to run, who owns it, and what happens on the day the person who knows is not there.
A roadmap with owners and dates
Sequenced, costed, and assigned. A plan you can hold someone to, including us, and one your team can read without a translator.
Scope examples
Operational priorities we can work through
Distributors bring us these. They are where a technology plan either helps the operation or misses it entirely. We assess them and plan around them. We do not promise you a number.
- Pricing strategy
- How price is set, where it is overridden, and what the system makes easy.
- Customer and supplier stratification
- Which accounts and vendors earn which terms, service, and attention.
- SKU and part-number reconciliation
- One part with four numbers across catalog, ERP, and the supplier's file.
- Inventory processes
- How counts happen, how they go wrong, and what the floor does about it.
- Reorder points
- What triggers a buy, who reviews it, and how often the trigger is ignored.
- Stocking methods
- Where product lives, why, and what that costs in pick time every day.
- Sales process documentation
- How a quote becomes an order, written down rather than remembered.
- Project documentation
- What was decided, what was installed, and why, for the next person.
These are areas to assess and plan around. They are not software features, and nothing here is a guaranteed outcome.
Not generic IT. Industrial IT.
Narium is built for industrial wholesale distributors running ERP systems like Prophet 21, Epicor Eclipse, and Infor SX.e/CloudSuite Distribution. Our hands-on depth today is Epicor Eclipse.
The operator background is the part that matters in a planning conversation. Cole spent seven years in electrical wholesale and distribution before he moved into technology, so what a slow month-end costs is not something he needs briefed. Jarrod holds a Master of Industrial Distribution from Texas A&M and spent thirty-five years in the technology industry, including infrastructure operations at Apple and a global SAP implementation across a worldwide spares division.
That is a different starting point from a generalist provider. The first question here is what the business is trying to finish, not what is installed.
Read the two careers in full on the about page, or start with the system most of these decisions run through, ERP services.
Planning for what is coming, without buying the hype
Distributors are being sold a great deal right now and some of it will matter. The useful question is which of it belongs in your operation, in what order, and at what cost. That is a roadmap conversation and it is one we are equipped to have. Expect us to say plainly when something is not ready for your floor, and when the honest answer is a process change rather than a purchase.
Common questions
What is a vCIO?
A vCIO, short for virtual CIO, is an outside technology leader who works your planning and priority decisions with you instead of joining your payroll. For a distributor that means someone who can weigh an ERP decision against a warehouse decision and tell you which one to do first.
What does a fractional CIO do?
A fractional CIO sets technology priorities, builds and defends the budget, sequences projects, and owns the roadmap. The difference between the titles is mostly habit. Both describe part-time executive technology leadership bought as a service.
How is a vCIO different from IT support?
IT support restores what broke. A vCIO decides what should change. Support is measured in resolved tickets. This work is measured in decisions made and projects that land in the right order.
When does a distributor need this kind of leadership?
Usually when the systems stop keeping up with the business. Several overdue decisions at once, a branch or an acquisition on the way, an ERP question nobody wants to own, or a budget being set without anyone able to say what it buys.
Connected work
The services these decisions land in.
ERP Services
A price does not match the agreement. A user cannot complete a task. The month-end reports do not tie out. Start with what your team is trying to finish, then trace what is stopping it. Our hands-on ERP experience is in Epicor Eclipse.
Explore →Managed IT / Core Infrastructure
Managed IT and co-managed IT services for distributors start with the systems, people, and handoffs that keep product moving. Infrastructure decisions need to reflect the work happening at each location.
Explore →Warehouse and Inventory Systems
The ship ticket has not printed. The same item is back on the count list. Eclipse shows stock that the shelf does not have. Start with the step that failed, then follow the order, inventory record, and devices involved.
Explore →Help Desk and Support
A user needs more than a ticket number when an order is waiting. Describe what stopped, where it happened, and which part of the operation is affected.
Explore →Cybersecurity
Protecting an industrial business starts with understanding its users, systems, access, and operational dependencies. Controls need clear ownership and a place in everyday work.
Explore →Your next step
Start with the decision you keep putting off.
Bring the technology question your operation has been working around. We will tell you what we would do first, and why.
Book a free initial consultationFree initial consultation, no commitment.