The direction first, the technology after

What it covers

The questions that stay on the board table

They are rarely technical questions. They are questions with money, time and risk attached, and ones that are hard to get an independent answer to inside your own organisation, because everybody is in the middle of them.

• What is our IT course for the next three to five years, and what does it cost?
• Do we do it ourselves or outsource it, and where does that line sit?
• What are we actually paying for IT, and are we getting the right thing for it?
• What do we do about AI: which step is sensible and which is still too early?
• How do we keep our freedom of choice when it comes to suppliers and packages?
• How do we fit security and compliance into the budget in a realistic way?

How it works

From a first conversation to a plan you can act on

An advisory assignment has a clear start and a clear end. You know in advance what you get and when.

• Getting acquainted: we talk through your question and agree what the advice needs to deliver
• Analysis: conversations with management and users, plus the figures, contracts and systems
• Advice: we present our findings at your table and walk through the choices together
• The plan: you keep a report and a multi-year plan, yours to do with as you like

Independent

Independent, of ourselves too

Advice that arrives at a proposal from the adviser is not advice. That is why this service sits apart from our delivery: you pay for the thinking, not for a route to a contract.

If the analysis shows your current supplier is doing well, we write that down. If it shows you are better off bringing something in-house than outsourcing it, likewise. We would rather you asked us back in two years than signed something now that does not suit you.

IT director on call

The role you do not have to employ anyone for

Plenty of organisations are too large to run IT on instinct and too small for an IT director of their own. That is where we sit at the table a few half-days a month: we prepare the decisions, keep the multi-year planning current, and hold the conversation with suppliers on your behalf.

Your board gains somebody who speaks the language of the technology and the language of the budget, and who does not have to be brought up to speed each time.

IT due diligence

Knowing what you buy before you sign

Whoever buys a company or invests in one buys the IT along with it. In an IT due diligence we map out how it stands, where the strengths and the risks are, and what it costs to bring it up to standard and merge it after the acquisition.

You get a report to lay alongside the financial and legal review, with findings you can take into the price and the agreements. We look at ten subjects:

• Infrastructure: network, servers, data centres, cloud and workplaces, right down to the mobile devices
• Continuity: maintenance, backup and restore, and whether there is a fallback plan that really works
• Security: access and MFA, network security, endpoints, encryption and what happens during an incident
• Software and data: packages and versions, custom software, databases, and the integrations and APIs between them
• Contracts and licences: terms, notice periods and whether usage matches what has been purchased
• Compliance: GDPR, NIS2 and certifications, and what earlier audits and incidents brought to light
• Strategy and organisation: the IT course, ongoing projects, and which people and suppliers carry the IT
• Financial: IT budgets, investments and depreciation, and what is coming in the years ahead
• For software companies: the quality of the code, the architecture and who owns the intellectual property
• Integration: what it takes to merge the IT after the acquisition, with a budget attached

Our approach

How an IT due diligence runs

We do this directly for buyers, investors and sellers, and on behalf of corporate finance advisers who want the IT properly substantiated. The approach is the same every time, so the outcomes are comparable and verifiable.

• A fixed information list across those ten subjects, which the seller provides through the data room
• Document analysis: SLAs, network drawings, inventory lists, licences, policies and earlier audits
• Interviews with the people who carry the IT, internally and at the suppliers, to test what is on paper
• A judgement per subject: sufficient, insufficient or not established. Whatever is not documented weighs the same as insufficient
• An assessment per risk from low to high, with a concrete measure to reduce it
• In a merger, the IT of both organisations side by side, with advice on which course should lead
• A report with findings, strengths and recommendations, which we walk through at your table as a discussion paper

Advice or hands

The difference with Expert IT

Expert IT is the service where a specialist of ours joins your team and does the work as well: a migration, a network, a setup. Strategic advice is the thinking beforehand, without the delivery.

Already know what has to happen and mainly need capacity? Then Expert IT suits you better, and we will say so straight away.