Breaking a leadership bottleneck at a manufacturer growing faster than its IT function.
3–4 weeks
From engagement to a complete IT leadership assessment
4
Phases, from assessment to org design
Unblocked
A stalled MSP selection, selected and onboarded
The situation
A manufacturer of short-run flexible packaging, serving healthcare, food, jan-san, and industrial customers, was growing through acquisition faster than its IT function could keep pace with. Initiatives were stalling, and the business needed senior technology leadership without committing to a full-time executive hire.
Why this was hard without help
The internal IT leader was capable but had never been given the mentorship a growing, acquisitive business demands: how to prioritize competing initiatives, what to delegate, and how to hold vendors accountable. Meanwhile, at least one major decision, an MSP selection, had stalled for months with no clear way to break the deadlock.
What our CIO in Residence brought
A four-phase engagement: a focused three-to-four week IT leadership assessment; pragmatic decision frameworks that broke the decision paralysis blocking the stalled MSP selection; structured mentoring of the internal IT leader on prioritization, delegation, and vendor accountability; and a scalable IT strategy and organizational structure, with recruiting support for the roles it defined.
Results
Documented outcomes
- A complete IT leadership assessment delivered inthree to four weeks.
- The stalled MSP selection was unblocked, selected, and onboarded.
- Vendor governance materially improved across the IT function.
- IT shifted from reactive firefighting to a structured, forward-looking operating model.
A note on this proof point
Unlike most engagements in this library, this one has no single hard-dollar savings figure attached, it's the qualitative and advisory proof point for this service: unblocked decisions, a stronger internal leader, and a scalable structure the business can grow into.
