Strategy on slides. A PDF report and nothing else.
Recommendations your team already knew, a score out of five and a PDF.
Systems losing support, in no order. Board risks with no number the chief executive or finance director can put on them.
Your systems mapped, your plan costed.
- 01
Every system mapped: its data, its connections, its cost.
- 02
A target architecture on open standards, built towards stage by stage.
- 03
What stays, what goes, what replaces it, and why.
- 04
A costed plan in fundable stages, with the business-case numbers your board will ask for, including today’s running cost.
- 05
A written baseline of running cost, number of systems and report times to measure improvement against.
- 06
Every decision recorded with its reason and approver; every stage signed off before the next.
Two ways to start.
Priorities Session
We do the research; you pick the top three objectives. You leave with a shortlist, what to do first, and a written summary to keep.
Technology Review and Roadmap
An architect-led review of your systems, data, costs and people, for a fixed fee. It ends in a costed roadmap you can act on.
Why ours gets funded.
A generic strategy can’t be costed, so can’t be approved. Ours is written by the engineers who will deliver it: what comes first, what it costs, what it saves, what it switches off.
It starts with your data, because everything else depends on numbers you can trust. That is the business case.
The assessment is your plan
Stages, each funded, approved and delivered on its own.
Principles every plan is judged against.
Every plan and review is checked against the same principles, written so a board can hold us to them.
Your data, under your control.
Data ownershipYour data in systems and formats you own, exportable at any time, definitions written down. No supplier holds the only copy.
Open data standards.
StandardsPublished open standards wherever one exists, so systems talk to each other without bespoke work.
Decoupled, modular systems.
ChangeSeparate parts, well-defined connections: any one can be replaced or switched off without touching the rest.
Integration and data architecture.
ConnectionsOne managed set of connections and one trusted source for each kind of data, so every number can be traced.
Ready for AI.
AI-readyClean, well-described data, clear access rules and a record of every change make AI safe to use and possible to govern.
Technology agnostic.
IndependenceThe tool that fits the job and the licences you already hold. We work across Microsoft, AWS and Google and take no commission from any.
The standards you are held to.
ComplianceDesigns checked against UK GDPR, the NCSC Cyber Assessment Framework, Cyber Essentials Plus, the Technology Code of Practice, the GDS Service Standard where it applies and your regulator’s expectations, with evidence produced as the work is done.
Two strategy reports had already produced nothing.
To hand over the secure cloud foundation.
On the plan and budget set at assessment.
Ageing systems replaced or moved without interrupting service.
To one trusted source of data, in daily use.
A housing association had two strategy reports from other firms. Neither had produced anything.
After our assessment, their Board approved a costed three-year programme in fundable stages. Thirty-six months on plan and budget, with the same technical lead throughout.
Get the plan your board can fund.
We research your organisation before we arrive. You bring the problem you already know about, pick the top three objectives, and leave with a shortlist, what to do first and a written summary.
No cost, no commitment. Every enquiry is read by Stuart Arthur.
Who this is for.
CEOs and CFOs who need a plan they can fund; boards with technology risk and no costed plan; heads of IT who know the answer but need it costed and approved.
Keep the leadership that wrote it.
Once the plan is funded, the same senior technology leader can stay with your executive team for an agreed number of days a month, as your CTO as a service, so the plan is owned and delivered rather than handed over.
Sets and owns the strategy.
DirectionOwns the strategy and its costed plan, and answers for it at board level.
Runs the decisions.
DecisionsRuns supplier, architecture and security decisions with your team, on the record.
Builds your own capability.
HandoverBuilds your capability, so the role can be handed over when you are ready.
A fixed monthly fee and agreed scope, reviewed quarterly.
One of three parts, in the order they are needed.
- 01Technology Leadership
A costed plan your board can fund.
- 02Engineering Foundations
Cloud, data and software that pay back early.
- 03Activate AI
AI working inside your organisation, and your people able to run it.
Book a Priorities Session.
We do the research, you pick the top three objectives, and leave with a shortlist and a written summary.