Big companies have always had seasoned technology leaders steering their strategy. Jeff Roberts founded Innovation Vista so that small and midsize firms could have one too.
Caption: Jeff Roberts, founder and CEO of Innovation Vista.
Innovation Vista at a glance
- 400 experienced C-level technology leaders in its consulting network
- $1.3bn+ in revenue impact delivered for clients
- 400%+ return on one client’s IT investment
The CIO every growing business deserves
Technology has rewritten the rules of business. It has made operations leaner, created whole new kinds of jobs and changed what customers expect. Today a company without a strong digital presence is not simply old-fashioned. It is handing an advantage to its competitors.
For years, the best technology thinking was a luxury reserved for large enterprises. Jeff Roberts never accepted that. He founded Innovation Vista to give small and midsize companies access to IT strategy and leadership through flexible engagements, built on a firm belief that the digital revolution belongs to them too.
Startups and growing firms often have the most to gain from smart technology, and the least room for error. Budgets are tight and in-house experience can be thin. That is exactly where an experienced partner can change a company’s trajectory, and where Innovation Vista has made its name.
A bench of 400 tech leaders
Only proven experts make the cut
Innovation Vista’s consulting network has grown to 400 people, and every one of them is an experienced C-level technology leader who has already succeeded as an executive. Many are working at the leading edge of innovation across every major industry, which gives clients a bench of top-flight expertise that few smaller firms could ever assemble on their own.
Selection is deliberate. Only consultants who combine technical depth with real business acumen get through. Once they are matched to a project, Innovation Vista backs them with the right resources, but the core principle is direct collaboration: consultant and client agree together on how they will work.
A model built for growth
The firm’s digital transformation practice rests on proprietary materials and a framework for spotting where technology can win market share and grow revenue. It all comes together in a three-stage technology maturity model:
- Stabilize: solid, dependable foundations
- Optimize: greater efficiency and performance
- Monetize: new revenue and market share
Tested from the very start
Innovation Vista faced its first real test almost at once. Within six months of its founding the pandemic arrived, and client work stalled as businesses everywhere scrambled to work out how to survive and adapt.
Jeff Roberts still found silver linings. In the months that followed, Innovation Vista expanded its consultant network dramatically. As remote working became normal, its “virtual CIO” model took off, overtaking the “fractional CIO” offer the firm had launched with. Being able to pair clients with consultants anywhere in the country also made it far easier to find the right fit for each one.
$1.3 billion later
Open-mindedness and humility, Jeff Roberts believes, are non-negotiable when change moves this fast. Customer expectations keep rising in the digital economy, so solutions that served well a few years ago may already be falling short. That can be uncomfortable for experts who have succeeded with familiar methods. The best IT strategy consultants bring their experience to every project but look at it with fresh eyes, alert to new capabilities and focused on each client’s own strategy.
The results have followed. Innovation Vista has helped clients generate more than $1.3 billion in revenue impact through digital transformation and new technology capabilities. There have been plenty of efficiency gains and cost savings along the way, but it is the top-line growth he is proudest of. Revenue, after all, is rarely the headline for an IT services firm.
Two transformations
For a brokerage firm, Innovation Vista led a transformation that brought in a fresh CRM platform, cleaner and better-connected data, machine learning and natural-language processing. Through new revenue and cost savings, the combination delivered a return of more than 400 percent on the IT investment.
For an oil and gas company, the team identified more than 40 potential uses for AI, covering everything from worker safety and output to regulatory and environmental paperwork. The client had invested heavily in IT yet had not explored what AI could do for its operations. Projects like this regularly uncover genuinely ground-breaking capabilities.
Much of this work happens in a part of the market most IT strategy consultancies overlook. For small and midsize clients, the payoff shows up in their people: employees become more productive, and their work shifts from routine tasks to genuinely analytical ones.
What comes next
Lately, more and more clients have been asking for help building an AI strategy. The team sees enormous promise in a technology that is maturing quickly, and several AI projects have already paid off handsomely, lifting revenue and efficiency alike.
Away from work, Jeff Roberts is a father of four adult children and a grandfather of two granddaughters. Professionally, he is energised by how far dashboards and business intelligence have come: organisations can now see their performance almost in real time, something few would have thought possible only a few years ago.
His mission remains simple. Most growing companies cannot justify a full-time, highly experienced CIO, yet they still deserve that level of thinking. High-impact technology, he insists, is not just for big business, and Innovation Vista exists to put that expertise within reach.
