Debra Chamra has a good article at Local Tech Wire on outsourcing CIOs. If your organization hasn't thought about this before, perhaps a snip from the article's section entitled, "Renting, Not Buying" provides good backdrop:

And why not? It is no secret to small and mid-size businesses that good tech help is not only hard to find these days, but potentially, hard to afford on a full-time basis. Known for creative solutions, these organizations have decided to rent rather than buy Chief Information Officers (CIOs).

According to Aberdeen Group senior analyst Stephen lane, "The idea behind CIO outsourcing is that you're renting an officer of the company. Ideally, that's someone who has the experience to get your company started with IT while you're building your own organization." This movement goes beyond standard project-based outsourcing -- an outsourced CIO becomes a member of the senior management team. Rest assured -- while the role of CIO is relatively new, executive outsourcing is not a new endeavor. CEOs and CFOs have been outsourced successfully for years.

Steve Shu