Strategy
IT Strategy & Consulting
A technology plan tied to what the business is trying to do — and a budget that survives contact with reality.
The problem
Technology decisions get made one emergency at a time. A vendor pitches something, a system fails, a customer demands an integration — and each decision makes sense alone while the sum of them doesn't. Nobody's holding the three-year picture, because that's a CIO's job and you don't have one.
How we help
We act as the CIO you'd hire at four times the size. That means an honest assessment of what you're running now, a roadmap sequenced by business impact rather than by what's newest, and a budget with the real numbers in it — including the boring renewals that wreck forecasts. Reviewed quarterly, because a plan written once and filed is just a document.
What's included
- Current-state assessment of systems, spend, contracts, and risk
- Multi-year technology roadmap sequenced by business impact
- IT budgeting and total-cost-of-ownership modeling
- Virtual CIO engagement with standing quarterly reviews
- Vendor selection, RFP support, and contract review
- Digital transformation planning and change management
- Merger and acquisition IT due diligence and integration
- Board and leadership reporting in language the board uses
Long-horizon partnerships
How this looks in practice
Several of our advisory relationships are measured in decades rather than engagements. That length is the actual proof point — roadmaps only mean anything if someone's still there when the three-year horizon arrives.
Questions we get asked
- What does a virtual CIO actually do?
- The parts of the CIO role that don't require a full-time salary: owning the roadmap, holding the budget, evaluating vendors, translating technology risk into business terms for your leadership, and being the person accountable when a decision needs making. Typically a standing quarterly cadence with availability in between.
- We're 40 people. Isn't strategy consulting overkill?
- Forty people is usually where it starts paying for itself. That's the size where accumulated one-off decisions begin actively costing money — duplicate SaaS subscriptions, systems that won't talk to each other, contracts nobody renegotiated. The work is mostly about stopping the bleeding you can't see.
- Do you sell the hardware and software you recommend?
- We'll procure on your behalf if it's easier, but we're not a reseller chasing vendor margin, and we'll say when the right answer is to keep what you have. If you'd rather buy direct, we'll hand you the spec.
The rest of what we do
Managed IT
Your IT department, staffed and running — monitoring, helpdesk, patching, and the network underneath it.
Cybersecurity
Defenses that hold up to a real attacker — and the evidence trail that satisfies your customers' auditors.
Cloud & Infrastructure
Migrations that finish, and infrastructure that costs what you expected it to cost.
Business Continuity
Backups somebody has actually restored from, and a recovery plan that's been rehearsed.
Software & AI
Software for the part of your business no vendor sells a product for — and AI applied where it actually pays.
Let's talk about what you're actually running.
A short, direct conversation about your systems, what's fragile, and what it would take to fix. No pitch deck, no obligation, and we'll tell you if we're not the right fit.
Or call 866.463.7687