Technology reviews
The Technology Return Review
For MDs and FDs who sign off the technology bill but don't have a CTO to answer for it.
Duration
Three weeks
Fee
£3,500, fixed
Suits
Owner-managed businesses without a CTO
You leave with
A one-page board paper, readable in 90 seconds
You approve a big technology spend every year. Can you say what you're getting for it?
Most boards can't. Not because anyone has done anything wrong. The costs are spread across the accounts and no one owns the answer. And now the same board is being asked to spend more on AI, on top of a bill nobody can explain.
This review answers both questions in three weeks, on one page your board can read in 90 seconds: what your technology spend gets you today, and where AI would actually make a difference.
What you get
A clear picture of the spend.
Every technology cost, in one place, sorted by what it does for the business: keeps it running, helps it grow, or changes how it works. Your ten biggest suppliers ranked, with a plain-English line on what each one is for.
The AI shortlist.
The three to five places in your business where AI or automation would pay for itself, each scored on how hard it is against what it's worth per year, with a 30-day starting plan. Just as useful: a straight answer on where AI isn't worth your money yet.
The board paper.
Three slides your FD can put in front of the board as they are: what technology costs, what it returns, what to decide next.
Where money is going out for nothing (licences nobody uses, two tools doing the same job, contracts renewing on autopilot), you'll see it, with figures. In reviews like this it's usually a meaningful slice of the budget, and it tends to pay for whatever the board decides to do next.
How it works
- Week 1 A 90-minute conversation with you, short calls with two or three of your department heads, and your spend figures collected. About three hours across the team.
- Week 2 I do the analysis. The odd question by email.
- Week 3 We sit down and go through the findings together. Sixty minutes, MD and FD.
The deal
£3,500 fixed
Half up front, half when the report is delivered.
If the final meeting doesn't leave your board with a clear, costed plan it can act on, don't pay the second half.
Why me
It's the same review discipline I apply in transaction due diligence (eight completed deals, most recently the £48m sale of National Milk Records to AB Agri, part of Associated British Foods plc) at a price an owner-managed business can simply decide on. See the deal sheet ›
What happens after
Most clients take the report and run with it themselves. It's written so you can. If you want help, it comes in two forms: a fixed-scope project to deliver one of the opportunities, or ongoing fractional CTO support. I won't raise either in the final meeting unless you do.
Where I work
Remote-first, UK-wide. Discovery and the final meeting are better in person where practical. I'm based near the M4 corridor and regularly work with businesses around Swindon, Bath, Cirencester, Chippenham and Bristol.