Should we hire fractional CIO or IT consulting?
If you need someone in the leadership meeting every month who owns the IT agenda, that is Fractional CIO/CISO. If you need a defined project delivered (a migration, a security gap closed, a roadmap written), that is consulting. Many clients start with one and add the other.
What kinds of projects do you take?
Roadmaps and assessments (IT Assessment when the ask is a checkup first), Microsoft 365 or cloud migrations (Cloud Services: Azure, Google Cloud, AWS), post-incident remediation, M&A diligence and integration planning, and vendor selection when you want an independent recommendation. Ongoing help desk and monitoring belong under Managed IT (see also IT Support and IT Helpdesk), not consulting. Healthcare and manufacturing remediation work is common.
How is consulting priced?
Projects are scoped with a clear start, finish, and deliverable set. Fixed-fee for well-defined work; time-and-materials when discovery is still open. If you need someone in the leadership meeting every month, that is the Fractional CIO/CISO seat.
Can consulting lead into managed services?
Often yes. A remediation or roadmap can hand off into Managed IT, Cybersecurity, or a fractional seat once the acute work is done. Once operations own the stack, platform work may continue under Microsoft 365, cloud, VoIP, or Backup & DR. We plan that handoff so you are not left with a binder and no operator.
We need help with data platforms and reporting, not a general IT project. Where do we start?
Start with Data Services for audits, needs assessments, vendor selection, BI and CRM builds, and ongoing data-system oversight. Use IT Consulting when the brief is broader (migrations, post-incident rebuilds, M&A tech diligence) and data is only one slice.
Is a Microsoft Copilot rollout an IT Consulting project?
Tenant migrations and rebuilds stay here. Copilot readiness, pilots, coaching, and hardening live under Microsoft Copilot. When a Copilot program needs a wider tenant remediation first, we often scope that remediation here and hand the AI program to Copilot once the estate can carry it.
