Chief Information Officer as a Service
More than SaaS. More than consulting.
Off-the-shelf software rarely solves problems the way the demo suggested. The internal time it takes to get there is the cost nobody budgets for.
Consultants bill by the hour, which puts the incentive on the wrong side of the table. A problem solved quickly and permanently is a problem that stops billing.
Chief Information Officer as a Service is an embedded technology partner that operates like a member of your C-suite. Leadership, engineering, and infrastructure, from one team that stays, on one fixed cost.
Three forces are converging on the middle market
The talent shortage
A mid-level engineer in NYC runs about $166,000 a year (Glassdoor). A full team runs $1,339,953 a year in salaries, and still may not cover every skill.
Siloed data and systems
CRM does not talk to ERP. Finance runs on spreadsheets. Operations has its own tools. Nobody has the full picture.
The iron triangle
Fast, good, or cheap: pick two. Every initiative runs over budget, over time, or under-delivers.
You have tried the alternatives
Hire internally
- Six to twelve months to recruit
- $1,339,953 in salaries for a complete team
- High mis-hire risk
- Hard to cover every discipline
Buy SaaS tools
- Rigid, one-size-fits-all
- Disconnected from each other
- Vendor lock-in
- Nobody owns the integration layer
Hire consultants
- A game of telephone: exec to PM to developer
- Hourly billing, no skin in the game
- Deliverables instead of outcomes
- The knowledge leaves when they do
What CIOaaS replaces them with
C-suite style strategy
- Value-first mentality
- 50+ years of leadership
- Bridging tech and business
Full stack team and tech
- The most modern tech stack
- AI-infused implementation
- All-inclusive SaaS license
Aligned partnership
- Custom portal
- Unlimited users
- No hidden fees
An entire technology team for less than one senior hire
Every figure below is Glassdoor's reported average base salary for that role in New York City, and every one links to the source.
| Role / capability | In-house annual | Source | With SEAD |
|---|---|---|---|
| CIO / VP of Technology | $345,047 | Glassdoor | Included |
| Database Architect | $185,403 | Glassdoor | Included |
| Backend Engineer | $185,364 | Glassdoor | Included |
| Lead Frontend Engineer | $214,372 | Glassdoor | Included |
| Cloud / DevOps Engineer | $159,084 | Glassdoor | Included |
| BI Analyst / ETL | $118,009 | Glassdoor | Included |
| Project Manager | $132,674 | Glassdoor | Included |
| Total, salaried roles | $1,339,953 / yr | Sum of the seven Glassdoor salaries above | All included |
| Software + Infrastructure | $125,000 | SEAD estimate, not in the salaried total | Included |
| Total including software and infrastructure | $1,464,953 / yr | Seven salaries plus the SEAD estimate | All included |
In-house figures are Glassdoor's reported average base salary for each role, New York City, as of Q2 2026. Figures are base salary only, excluding benefits, payroll tax, and overhead, so the comparison against an all-inclusive fee is conservative. The salaried total is the sum of the seven Glassdoor rows; software and infrastructure is a SEAD estimate, shown separately and counted only in the combined figure.
Your stack, unified
You already run the systems your business needs. CIOaaS does not replace them. It connects them, so the numbers in one agree with the numbers in another.
Finance and ERP
Sales and CRM
Operations and inventory
HR and time tracking
Marketing and analytics
Project and collaboration
Connect to everything, own nothing
The systems you already run are not the problem, and replacing them is rarely the answer. The problem is that they do not speak to each other and here are ways SEAD connects to your systems and data.
API
We create endpoints within Co-Wright automatically, integrating with any system and its customizations, as far as the vendor's API allows.
Direct database
Custom ETL in SQL and Python, pulling data straight into the platform. We need access privileges and nothing else.
SFTP
Scheduled and event-driven file transfer, loaded directly into the platform.
Screen scrape
For platforms with no connection available, we can extract data from the interface itself, where the site and vendor permit it.
Be the system of record
If the system does not exist in your estate, or you are moving off something outdated, Co-Wright can hold the data itself and save you a platform cost.
A Single Portal of Truth, not just "a dashboard"
Connecting the systems is what makes the rest possible. Once the data is in one place, the work stops being reporting and starts being operations.
Executive
KPI dashboards, scenario planning, risk analysis
Finance
Consolidated reporting, FP&A automation, audit-ready dashboards
Sales
CRM optimization, pipeline automation, revenue analytics
Operations
Inventory management, job costing, logistics workflows
HR
Onboarding automation, timesheet reconciliation, PTO tracking
Recruiting
Candidate sourcing and scoring, ATS integration, data-driven hiring
Four phases, one escalating commitment
The ladder starts with phase zero — a preview built on your own data, under NDA, before anything is signed — though a company that already knows what hurts can enter at phase two. Each phase carries its own commercial rung, and each rung is earned by the one before it. You commit further only after the value is on the table.
NDA & preview
A demo on sample data, an NDA, a dataset you choose — and a working portal on your own data before anything else is signed.
NDA first — a preview, not a commitment
Read about NDA & previewAssess & launch
Understand the business, connect or build the systems it runs on. Your ninety-day proof of concept lives here.
90-day proof of concept — 100% money-back guarantee
Read about Assess & launchEnhance & streamline
Connect the systems to each other. This is where disparate data becomes a single portal of truth and your teams see the whole picture for the first time.
12-month partnership — the proof of concept behind it
Read about Enhance & streamlineOptimize & scale
Build the internal ecosystem to scale as the business scales, using the efficiencies and insight the first two phases produced.
24-month+ aligned contract — variable component available
Read about Optimize & scaleWhere it maturesFrom there the partnership settles into one of two states: true scale, where the platform grows with the business, or steady-state maintenance, where it quietly keeps running. Both are successful endings.
Our next steps
The first step is a conversation. Thirty minutes on your systems and your questions. From there, phase zero — a preview built on your own data, under NDA, before you commit to anything — or, if you already know what hurts, straight into phase two.