What is a Virtual Chief X Officer (VCXO)?
You might have seen a previous blog I published My Experiences in the Gig Economy where I made the first mention of the concept of a Virtual Chief Operating Officer (VCOO).
With some of my recent “gigs”, it’s highlighted to me that it really is something that is valuable to a fast-growing startup, or a small company that is about to reset itself for a new phase of growth.
As a consultant/coach, I’m focused on working with current team members and building their capabilities, including someone in a Head of Operations/R&D or Chief Operating Officer role. But what if that person doesn’t exist? Instead, someone from the team is trying to fit it in with all of their other responsibilities, but never has enough time to dedicate to it, resulting in things falling through the cracks.
The problem is that the company is just too small to warrant to bring on someone fulltime into that role (and the cost of that) and is forced to find someone cheaper that could do it, but they will often have very little experience in having done it before. This results in that person and your organisation having to go through the trial and error approach in order to gain the learnings that an experienced COO would have had already from doing it in other companies. Unfortunately, this means that the company has to go through the pain and costs associated to gain those learnings.
Virtual Chief Operating Officer (VCOO)
The role of Virtual Chief Financial Officer (VCFO) has been around for some time and addresses the above issue in relation to financial management aspects of the business.
So what about the concept of a Virtual Chief Operating Officer (VCOO)?
When you think about it, there are two main objectives for a COO:
Building the business operational processes and systems for the company to run efficiently, thereby maximising profits and customer satisfaction.
Running and overseeing the operational activities and continually improving and refining the processes and systems.
The benefit of having someone that has done it before is a way to fast-track building that capability in your organisation, addressing the immediate need. But, it also paves the way so that once the company has scaled, it know’s what that capability needs to look like, so it can either upskill an existing team member into that role, or bring on a new person that can hit the ground running, as the structure, processes and systems are already in place.
While I have expertise in operations and product and could be your Virtual Chief Operating Officer (VCOO) or Virtual Chief Product Officer (VCPO), I also have individuals in my network that have expertise in different areas. They could be your Virtual Chief Marketing Officer (VCMO), Virtual Chief Revenue Officer (VCRO), etc.
If you are interested in this concept and how it could help to accelerate the growth of your company but building those capabilities and benefiting from them much sooner, feel free to reach out.