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Pillar 04 · Technology Consulting

A second opinion.
From people with
nothing to sell you.

Licensing audits, stack reviews, migration plans, board-level technology advice. We don't resell anything, so we don't have a horse in the race.

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PLATFORMS WE HAVE OPINIONS ON:
Microsoft 365Google WorkspaceAWSAzureGoogle CloudCloudflareVercelStripe
§ 01 — What we advise on

Six things we get
asked to look at.

Most consulting engagements start with one of these. Some grow into managed retainers, web builds, or AI work — others stay one-off. We're happy either way.
/01 — AUDITS

Licensing & cloud-cost audits.

We sit in your tenant (or your AWS bill, or your Google Workspace admin) for a few hours and tell you, in writing, what you're paying for and shouldn't be — and what you're not paying for and should be. Typical client recovers a meaningful chunk of cloud spend in year one.

/02 — SECOND OPINION

Sanity-check a proposal from someone else.

You've got a proposal from another vendor — a website rebuild, a Salesforce implementation, an "AI transformation". You'd like a senior technologist with no skin in the game to tell you whether it's reasonable. We do this most weeks. We'll be honest, sometimes the other team is right.

/03 — MIGRATION PLANS

On-prem → cloud. Google → Microsoft. PHP → TS.

A written migration plan with sequencing, risk register, and rollback path — before the first byte moves.

/04 — STACK REVIEW

Whole-portfolio review of every tool in your business.

Twelve tools you didn't know you were paying for, three you should consolidate, two worth keeping.

/05 — STRATEGY

12-month technology roadmap for the board.

Plain-English priorities with effort estimates and a "do nothing" option for each.

/06 — FRACTIONAL

Fractional CTO & CIO services — a day a week, fixed retainer, board meetings included.

A senior technologist on speed-dial, attending the board, owning the technical narrative.

§ 02 — Before & after

What a stack review reveals.

A composite of what we typically inherit on a stack-review engagement, and what the recommendations look like after a two-week pass.
Before · the audit
  • Three CRMs in active use (HubSpot, Pipedrive, a spreadsheet)
  • M365 Business Premium for everyone — even the warehouse team
  • Two overlapping project tools paid out of separate budgets
  • AWS spend with no idea who owns what
  • No documented inventory of SaaS subscriptions
  • Three vendors quoting wildly different amounts for the same problem
After · the report
  • One CRM picked, migration plan written, others deprecated
  • Licence stack rightsized → recurring spend recovered
  • Project tools consolidated · single source of truth
  • AWS workloads tagged · cost owners identified · spend down materially
  • Living SaaS inventory in your finance system
  • Recommendation: consolidate to one vendor instead of three
CASE STUDY · Brindle Recruit

An M365 licensing audit that paid for itself in month one

Three overlapping Microsoft SKUs that nobody had spotted. We walked the finance lead through the actual usage data, identified the staff who didn't need a paid licence at all, and rebuilt the assignment policy in two afternoons.

31%
Cloud spend cut · year one
§ 04 — Also see

Pick a related thread.

Most consulting engagements end with a recommendation to do work — and we can usually do that work ourselves.
PILLAR 01

Managed IT & Cloud

Stop the leak — then keep it stopped.

Read more
PILLAR 02

Web & App Development

Build the thing the audit said you needed.

Read more
PILLAR 03

AI & Automations

Automate the process the review surfaced.

Read more
Ready when you are

Got a decision pending?
Borrow a brain for an hour.

Vendor proposal landed and you're not sure? Stack feels expensive but you can't tell why? A migration on the horizon? Thirty minutes with a director — no obligation, no upsell, real opinions.

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A director will reply within 4 business hours · Mon – Fri, 9 – 6 UK