A chief technology officer (CTO), sometimes known as a chief technical officer or chief technologist, is an executive-level position in a company or other entity whose occupation is focused on scientific and technological issues within an organization, the CTO and the deputy director(s) collaborate and work as a team regarding department administration, however, each deputy director will focus on several assigned areas of responsibility.
While there are numerous factors driving the evolution of the CTO function, in the main, the role has evolved as new technologies have emerged.
Over the last several years, the function of the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) has become increasingly important to the success of almost every type of organization, CTO as a service is a flexible way to gain expertise without taking on the financial burden of a full-time employee with a similar resume, moreover, speaking about a tech startup, an experienced CTO can bring progressive ideas to your organization and find advanced tech solutions.
After understanding and clarifying requirements from the business units the CTO creates a technology solution to fulfill those requirements while keeping the enterprise architecture goals in mind, for taking critical technological decisions in every organization, a Chief Technology Officer or CTO plays a vital role.
As a CTO one is responsible for establishing your organizations technical vision and strategy and also leading various aspects of your organizations future technology development, a Chief Technology Officer provides sound technical knowledge and leadership in all aspects of your business.
In a startup environment, a CTO needs to have very deep technical knowledge of what the company does and how it relates to the industry AND is also very capable (communication/soft skills) to convey that to all other functions AND customers.
Accountable for the delivery of all technology products and projects in assigned areas including managing the scope, schedule, resources, budget, and quality of each project, when considering any technical solution, as a part of analysis, the CTO always explores whether a cloud solution (especially SaaS) is available and whether it makes sense for your business requirements and financial models.
The CTO role IS the key contact between business units and the technology vendors, helping to articulate business needs and strategies.