Services

Executive Technology Services

Most established businesses reach a point where technology decisions are too consequential to take without senior technical judgement — and too infrequent to justify a technology executive on the payroll. This practice puts that judgement in the room for the decisions that warrant it.

The situation

What we usually find

For boards, chief executives and finance directors carrying technology decisions they have no independent way to interrogate.

The pattern is recognisable. The business runs on systems chosen at different times for different reasons, each defended by the supplier who sold it. A quotation arrives, and nobody in the room can say with authority whether the price is reasonable, whether the integration will hold, or what the thing will cost to run in its third year.

The decision gets made anyway — usually by whoever is most confident, or most recently persuaded. The cost surfaces later, as a renewal nobody budgeted for, an integration that has to be rebuilt, or a supplier who turns out to be the only person alive who understands a system the business cannot trade without.

A fractional arrangement changes who is in the room rather than how much you spend. The judgement a large company keeps on staff, applied to the decisions that actually need it, and absent from the ones that do not.

What changes

From where you are, to where this gets you

Most organisations arrive at this practice from a recognisable place. This is the distance it covers.

What this practice changes. Technology decisions taken without senior technical judgement in the room becomes: A technology view at board level, on every decision. Vendors managed by whoever happened to pick up the phone becomes: One person accountable for every vendor relationship. IT spend agreed project by project, as each one arrives becomes: Investment planned against a roadmap you can defend. Risk discovered during the audit becomes: Risk reviewed long before it becomes a finding.

  1. Technology decisions taken without senior technical judgement in the room

    A technology view at board level, on every decision

  2. Vendors managed by whoever happened to pick up the phone

    One person accountable for every vendor relationship

  3. IT spend agreed project by project, as each one arrives

    Investment planned against a roadmap you can defend

  4. Risk discovered during the audit

    Risk reviewed long before it becomes a finding

What this practice covers

The work itself

Engagements draw on whichever of these the situation needs. Very few use all of them, and we will say which we think apply before you commit to anything.

Leadership in the room

A named senior technologist who sits on your side of the table, attends the meetings that matter and is accountable for the advice given.

  • Fractional CTO
  • Executive advisory

Direction and investment

A written view of where the technology estate is going, what it will take to get there, and in what order — so spending can be planned rather than reacted to.

  • Technology strategy
  • Digital transformation roadmap
  • IT investment planning

Governance and risk

An independent read on what you actually have, what it exposes the business to, and what needs attention before it becomes an audit finding.

  • Technology governance
  • Risk and compliance oversight
  • Technology audits

Suppliers and review

One accountable party across every vendor relationship, and a standing rhythm of review so the estate does not quietly drift out of date.

  • Vendor and solution management
  • Continuous technology reviews

How it runs

What happens if you call us

Every engagement has a decision point at the end of each stage. You can stop at any one of them, and what you have paid for up to that point is yours to take elsewhere.

  1. 01

    Read what exists

    Contracts, licences, renewal dates, the architecture as built rather than as documented, and where technology money has actually gone. We talk to the people who use the systems daily, not only to the people who bought them.

  2. 02

    Say where you stand

    A written position on the estate: what is sound, what is fragile, what is over-supplied and what is exposed. Written for a board to read, not for a technical audience.

  3. 03

    Agree the order of work

    Priorities sequenced by consequence, with the reasoning shown. You decide what to act on and what to leave — nothing is bundled, and declining a recommendation does not end the arrangement.

  4. 04

    Stay in the room

    A standing commitment with the same named person: papers before board meetings, a view on decisions as they arise, and a scheduled review of the roadmap against what has changed in the business.

What you get

The things you keep

Advisory work is easy to buy and hard to hold on to. These are the artefacts that remain with you afterwards, and they belong to you whether or not the engagement continues.

  • A written technology position — what you run, what it costs, what it exposes you to
  • A prioritised roadmap with the sequencing reasoning shown, not just the conclusions
  • A supplier and contract register with renewal dates and a named owner against each
  • Board papers ahead of the meetings, written to be read by non-technical directors
  • A scheduled review against the roadmap: what moved, what did not, and what should change
Two senior colleagues seated at a boardroom table in a sunlit office, a wall screen out of focus behind them.

Where this is not the answer

Where we have an interest, we will say so before you ask. WIZAG publishes its own ERP and is a Sage business partner, so on system selection we are not a disinterested party and you should weigh our advice with that in front of you. Where a decision genuinely needs someone with nothing to sell, we will tell you that too.

Explore Executive Technology Services

Tell us what you are trying to improve and we will tell you, plainly, whether we are the right people for it.

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