Decisions, not opinions.
Technology advice from people who build, host and run technology every day. Roadmaps with budgets. Vendor consolidation with real savings. A fractional CIO who turns up. Contracts reviewed before you sign them.
For owner-managed businesses, FSPs, legal and accounting practices, estates and groups that have outgrown "the IT guy" but don't need a full-time CIO.
The decisions that cost the most when they go wrong.
Technology roadmap & budget
A 12–36 month plan with quarterly budgets and the business reason for every line. The document your IT budget is built from.
Output · roadmap + budgetVendor & system consolidation
Map every supplier, contract and system; find the overlap; consolidate onto fewer, better-fitting services with one SLA and one number.
Output · consolidation plan + savingsFractional CIO / IT manager
A named senior engineer for set days a month: vendor management, board reporting, compliance oversight, project assurance.
Output · monthly retainerMicrosoft & cloud strategy
Which licences, which cloud, what stays on premise, what moves to our private cloud, what it costs in rand over three years.
Output · licensing + cloud planProcurement & contract review
Before you sign the fibre, PBX, software or support contract: what's missing, what's overpriced, what the SLA really says.
Output · red-lined contract + recommendationCompliance programme
POPIA, FICA, FSCA, LPC, SAICA obligations mapped to technology controls, with the evidence pack your auditor asks for.
Output · control map + evidence packProject assurance
Independent oversight of a migration, a software build or an integrator's project: scope, milestones, acceptance, risk.
Output · monthly assurance reportMergers, moves & growth
Two firms becoming one, a new building, a second branch, a group structure — the technology plan so day one works.
Output · integration or move planBuild vs buy vs platform
Custom software, an off-the-shelf product or a Swiss platform? A written comparison with total cost over five years.
Output · options paperFewer vendors. One SLA. One number to call.
A typical 40-person firm we walk into is paying eleven suppliers for what four could do better. Consolidation isn't about moving everything to us — it's about removing the gaps between suppliers where problems live.
Before — a typical firm
- Fibre ISP R
- LTE backup on a personal contract R
- Phone / PBX company R
- "The IT guy" (ad hoc, hourly) R
- Microsoft licences via a reseller R
- Cloud backup subscription R
- Antivirus renewal R
- Camera installer + monitoring company R
- Practice / accounting software vendor R
- Website and email hosting R
- Printer / copier contract R
After — consolidated
- Swiss Systems: internet + failover, 3CX, managed IT, Microsoft 365, private cloud, monitoring 1 SLA
- Practice software vendor (kept, integrated) kept
- Printer contract (renegotiated) kept
- Website (hosted on our cloud) moved
Typical outcome: 11 → 3 suppliers, one monthly invoice for technology, one report, one accountable engineer. Savings vary; clarity doesn't.
Where compliance is the brief, not the footnote.
We work with many financial services providers, legal practices and accounting firms. Their regulators and professional bodies set the rules; we build the technology so the rules are met by default and evidenced on demand.
Financial services providers
Record-keeping and retention, client data protection, secure communications, business continuity, access logging for the compliance officer.
Legal practices
Client confidentiality and privilege, trust-account system controls, document retention, matter-based access, secure client portals.
Accounting & audit firms
Independence and data segregation, client file retention, secure exchange with clients, working-paper backup and DR.
Medical practices
Patient record protection, retention periods, practice-management system hosting and backup, staff access controls.
For most of these firms, standard Microsoft 365 Business — configured properly — is the right starting point: identity, MFA, retention, encryption and audit logging are already inside the licence. Microsoft 365 licensing & compliance →
Understand. Options. Decide. Review.
Understand
Strategy session, then a system audit or health check so the advice rests on measurements, not memory.
Options
Two or three realistic paths, each with cost over three to five years, risk and effort — written plainly.
Decide
We present, you decide. The chosen path becomes a roadmap with budgets and dates.
Review
Quarterly against reality. Fractional CIO customers get this built in.
Straight answers.
What does 'consolidation' mean in practice?
Most businesses accumulate five to fifteen vendors — a fibre provider, a phone company, an IT support firm, a Microsoft reseller, a camera installer, a software vendor, a backup service — each with its own invoice, contract and finger to point. We map them, find the overlap, and consolidate onto fewer, better-fitting services with one SLA and one number to call. Typical result: fewer suppliers, lower total cost, and someone accountable.
Is a fractional CIO worth it for a 30-person firm?
Usually yes, precisely because the firm can't justify a full-time one. A fractional CIO gives you a named senior engineer for a set number of days a month: budgets, vendor management, board reporting, compliance oversight, project assurance. You pay for the days, not the title.
Do you only recommend Swiss Systems services?
No. Advisory is priced on its own and the recommendations are written to be executed by anyone. Where a Swiss service is the right answer we'll say so and show the comparison; where it isn't, we'll say that too. Our reputation depends on the advice being right.
We're an FSP / law firm / accounting practice. What's different for us?
Your regulator and your professional body impose data, retention, access and confidentiality obligations — FSCA and FAIS record-keeping, FICA, the LPC's rules on client information, SAICA's independence and data requirements, and POPIA over all of it. We build compliance into the technology (identity, retention, DLP, backup, access logs) rather than bolting on paperwork, and we produce the evidence when the auditor or the regulator asks.
What does a technology roadmap look like?
A 12–36 month plan on a few pages: what to fix, replace, consolidate or build, in what order, with budgets per quarter and the business reason for each item. Reviewed quarterly against reality. It becomes the basis for your IT budget and every vendor conversation.
How is advisory priced?
Fixed-price engagements (a roadmap, a consolidation review, a contract review) or a monthly retainer for fractional CIO days. Quoted after a scoping call; no hourly surprises.
Advise. Build. Host. Connect. Run.
Every service sits in one of four lines and runs under the same SLA: 15-minute P1 response, 99.9% hosted uptime, named engineers, monthly reporting, service credits if we miss. See the SLA in numbers →
Bring the problem. We'll bring the numbers.
A 45-minute strategy session with a senior engineer. Tell us what's on the table — a renewal, a migration, a merger, a regulator letter, too many vendors — and we'll tell you how we'd approach it and what it would cost.
Practitioners, not slide decks
Advice from engineers who run a data centre and ship software. It has to work on Monday.
Written and measured
Every recommendation with a number, a date and a reason. Reviewed against reality each quarter.
Independent
Priced on its own. Executable by anyone. We'd rather earn the work than trap it.