IT consulting & advisory
Advice from people who still build things
Technology strategy, architecture reviews, vendor selection and due diligence — delivered as a recommendation you can act on, not a deck you file.
Fixed-price engagements with a defined written output.
What this practice is for
Consulting here means answering a specific, consequential technology question with enough rigour that you can act on the answer. Not a transformation programme, not a maturity framework — a decision you're stuck on, examined properly and written up.
The people doing it are engineers who are also delivering projects. That matters because architecture advice from someone who hasn't operated a system in five years tends toward the theoretically correct and the practically unaffordable.
Every engagement ends with a written document: the options, the trade-offs, a clear recommendation, and what it would cost. Yours to keep, share and act on with whoever you like.
The obvious conflict of interest, addressed
We also build software. So when we're asked whether you should build something, we have an incentive to say yes. Pretending otherwise would be insulting, so here's how we handle it.
Advisory engagements are priced and contracted separately from delivery, and the fee doesn't change based on what we recommend. The recommendation is written to be executed by anyone — enough detail that another firm could act on it — and where the honest answer is to buy a product or keep your current supplier, that's what the document says.
If you'd rather remove the incentive entirely, say so up front and we'll agree in the contract that we won't bid on the resulting work. Several clients have taken that option, and we'd rather have the reputation than the follow-on project.
What we advise on
Six questions we're asked most often.
Technology strategy
What to build, buy, replace or leave alone over the next 12–24 months, sequenced by business value rather than by technical elegance.
Architecture review
An assessment of whether your current architecture will support where the business is going, what will break first, and what to do about it in what order.
Build vs buy
A structured comparison of building, configuring a platform, or buying off the shelf — with total cost over five years, not just the first invoice.
Vendor selection
Requirements definition, shortlisting, structured evaluation and reference checks. We take no commission from any vendor, which is not universal in this market.
Technical due diligence
For investors and acquirers: code quality, architecture, security posture, key-person risk and the remediation cost — before you commit capital.
Delivery diagnostics
Why software takes longer than expected here. Usually a mix of process, architecture and unspoken organisational constraints, and rarely the one people assume.
How advisory works
Three sizes. All fixed price, all ending in a document.
Advisory session
One focused question, one working session with the right people in the room, and a written answer within a few days. The right starting point for most.
Output: Written summary and recommendation
Assessment
An architecture review, build-vs-buy analysis, vendor selection or delivery diagnostic. Includes interviews, code and infrastructure review, and a presented findings session.
Output: Full report with options and costs
Fractional CTO
A senior engineer embedded part-time for companies that need technical leadership but aren't ready for a full-time CTO. Typically a few days a month.
Output: Continuous technical leadership
When advisory is worth buying
Four situations where a few days of outside review reliably pays for itself.
A big decision with no way back
Replatforming, a multi-year vendor contract, or committing to an architecture. The cost of an assessment is trivial next to the cost of being wrong for three years.
Delivery has slowed and nobody knows why
When each release takes longer than the last and every explanation sounds plausible, an outsider who has seen the pattern before is usually faster than another internal retrospective.
You're about to buy a company
Technical due diligence routinely changes the price or the terms. Finding out about the single unmaintainable service after completion is expensive.
Two internal camps disagree
Where a technical disagreement has become political, an evidenced external recommendation gives everyone a way to move forward without anyone losing.
FAQ
Consulting questions
How is this different from just hiring you to build something?
Advisory answers a question; delivery builds a thing. They're contracted separately and the advisory fee doesn't change based on the answer. Plenty of advisory engagements conclude with a recommendation to buy a product, keep your current vendor, or do nothing yet.
Will you recommend your own services?
Only when we're genuinely the right answer, and we'll say plainly that we have an interest when we do. If you'd rather eliminate the question, we'll agree up front not to bid on the resulting work — a few clients have taken that, and it costs us nothing worth keeping.
What do we get at the end?
A written document: the question, what we examined, the options with their trade-offs, a clear recommendation and an indicative cost. Written for your board as much as your engineers, and detailed enough that any competent firm could execute it.
Do you do technical due diligence for investors?
Yes. Typical scope is code quality and maintainability, architecture scalability, security posture, licensing and IP, key-person risk, and an estimate of the remediation cost. Turnaround is usually two to three weeks, and we can work to a shorter deadline where a transaction requires it.
We're a small company. Is consulting affordable?
The half-day advisory session exists for exactly this. One focused question, one session, a written answer — a fraction of the cost of an assessment and frequently enough. We'd rather do that well than sell you a programme you don't need.
Do you understand Indian regulatory constraints?
For the areas we work in, yes — DPDP obligations for personal data, TRAI DLT rules for messaging, and data-residency expectations for regulated sectors. We're engineers rather than lawyers, so where something is genuinely a legal question we'll say so and recommend counsel.
Related services
What decision are you stuck on?
One paragraph describing the question and who's involved. We'll tell you whether it needs a half-day session or a full assessment — and sometimes that it needs neither.