Approach / Consultancy & Strategy

Honest advice from people who've built the things.

There's no shortage of slide decks in this industry. We do fewer of those — and more sketching the architecture on a whiteboard, telling you what'll bite in two years, and helping you choose the boring decision over the shiny one.

  • Independent advice
  • Vendor-agnostic
  • UK-based
  • Roadmaps that ship
Introduction

You've been pitched the upgrade. The vendor's deck is glossy. The incumbent says it's fine. The board wants a number. And nobody's told you which call is the one you'll regret in eighteen months. That's the gap we're here to fill.

The conversation before the kit.

Consultancy & Strategy

Boring calls, made well.

Architects and senior engineers who've built the networks, run the M365 estates and held the cyber line for two decades. The advice you get is shaped by what actually works at three in the morning, not what looked good at the partner kick-off.

Where we sit down

Discovery

Two-week, fixed-fee read on the estate as it is — suppliers, contracts, kit, M365 tenant, cyber posture. Plain-English findings, not a deck of vendor talking points.

Technology audits

Independent assessment of networks, cyber, cloud or M365. We map what's working to what isn't, and price the gap to closure honestly.

Decision support

A sounding board for the hard calls — vendor choice, build-vs-buy, when to renew, when to walk. We've made the call before; we'll talk you through it.

Readiness work

Cyber Essentials, Cyber Essentials Plus and ISO 27001 readiness — gaps named, closure scoped, timeline honest. You'll know if you're six weeks out or six months.

What you walk away with

Sequenced roadmap

12–24 month plan, prioritised by risk and dependency, costed and owned. Something you can take to a board, not a sketch on a whiteboard.

Target architecture

Documented future-state across networks, identity, cloud and security — with the migration path back to where you are today.

Decision pack

Vendor evaluation, BoM, commercial comparison, risks named. The thing you wish your incumbent had given you before you signed.

Independent second opinion

Sometimes you just need someone to tell you the call you're already leaning towards is the right one — or that it isn't.

What independent advice actually buys you.

Decisions you can defend

Boards and auditors get straight answers. Every recommendation traceable to risk, cost or capability — not the vendor with the best margin this quarter.

No surprises 18 months in

The roadmap accounts for the things that bite later — licence drift, end-of-life kit, contract renewals stacked the wrong way round.

Built once, scaled cleanly

What you adopt today doesn't paint you into a corner. The boring decision usually is the right one.

  • Vendor-agnostic
  • UK-based engineers
  • ISO 27001
  • Cyber Essentials Plus
How to engage

Pick the size of the conversation.

Most clients start with a discovery call or a fixed-fee audit. From there it's either a roadmap engagement, an advisory retainer, or a handover to whichever delivery team does the work — including yours.

  1. Discovery call

    30 minutes, no kit pitched. Tell us what's keeping you up at night, we'll tell you whether we're the right people to help.

  2. Fixed-fee audit

    Two-week assessment of one domain — networks, cyber, M365 or the wider estate. Documented findings, no obligation to do the next step with us.

  3. Roadmap engagement

    4–8 weeks to land a 12–24 month plan, target architecture and decision pack you can defend to a board.

  4. Advisory retainer

    Monthly retainer for organisations that want a sounding board on tap rather than hiring another full-time architect.

The M-Tech team work with us, for us, alongside us; they are an integral part of our team and are much more than our IT supplier. By fostering such close working relationships they understand our business needs and challenges at both the strategic and daily operational levels.

Voice of the clientIT Director · Birchwood Motor Group
FAQs

Questions we hear every week.

Is this just decks and roadmaps, or do you actually do anything?
Both — by choice. The same engineers who write the roadmap can deliver against it. But you're under no obligation to use us downstream — plenty of clients take the audit, the roadmap or the second-opinion review and run the work in-house or with another partner. We're comfortable either way.
How is this different from a vendor's pre-sales engineer?
Pre-sales engineers are paid to sell their employer's kit. We're paid for the day. Same engineering bench, completely different commercial incentive. The advice changes accordingly.
What if you tell us things we don't want to hear?
That's usually the most valuable conversation in the engagement. We'll tell you what we found, why it matters and what we'd do about it — even if the honest answer is “don't do this project at all”.
We've already had advice. Do we need more?
Often the most useful thing we do is read what you've already been told and call out where it's solid and where it's a vendor putting their thumb on the scale. 30-minute discovery call costs you nothing.
Can you help us through Cyber Essentials or ISO 27001?
Yes. Readiness assessments, gap closure, evidence pack — the practical work that gets you across the line. See Secure by Design for the build side, or Fully Managed Services for the operating side.
What's a typical engagement length?
Discovery call is half an hour. Fixed-fee audit is two weeks. Roadmap is four to eight. Retainers are monthly, cancellable. We don't lock anyone in.
/ Start a conversation

Tell us what you're trying to do.

Whatever the shape of your team or your stack — multi-site, lean on IT, or somewhere in the middle — we'll listen first, ask the right questions, and tell you honestly how we'd approach it.

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