FRACTIONAL CTO
PLATEFORMS gives you the technology leadership your business needs without necessarily hiring a full-time CTO.
We analyse your IT, its costs, risks and dependencies to help you understand the situation, make informed decisions and prioritise what matters. You can then remain in control, ask us to lead the work or involve us through to implementation.
Over time, tools, providers, contracts and technical decisions accumulate. As long as everything continues to work, it is easy to postpone the more fundamental questions.
Who depends on whom? What does your IT really cost? Which tools overlap? Which contracts are likely to change? What happens if a key person leaves? Can your backups actually be restored? Which issues require action now, and which can wait?
The role of a Fractional CTO is to provide that visibility and turn these questions into decisions.
We start by looking at your business as a whole: people, working practices, tools, providers, infrastructure, applications, contracts and costs.
The goal is not to look for problems in order to justify new projects. It is to understand what works, what can be improved and what genuinely represents a risk.
Who does what? Who makes the decisions? Where does critical knowledge sit?
Which tools are actually used? Where are the overlaps and dependencies?
How do the systems run, and how are they monitored, backed up and maintained?
What do they actually provide? At what cost? With which dependencies and renewal dates?
What are you paying for today, and why? How are those costs likely to evolve?
Dependency on key people, technical debt, security, obsolescence or unresolved issues that have been allowed to accumulate.
An IT assessment should not result in an endless list of problems to fix.
We first identify what presents a significant risk or can deliver a meaningful improvement quickly. Those topics are addressed first.
Everything else is assessed and placed on a clear path according to impact, urgency, cost and the value expected for the business.
What genuinely exposes the business to risk or prevents it from operating effectively.
What is worth improving because the expected impact justifies the investment.
What should be anticipated, budgeted for or simply monitored.
What is not perfect, but would be unnecessary or disproportionate to change today.
Optimising IT does not mean reducing every line of expenditure.
We look to understand costs, remove what no longer provides value, avoid duplication and anticipate changes to contracts or licences.
But we will also recommend investment when it reduces risk, improves operations or avoids a much greater cost later.
The objective: the right level of technology, service and investment for your business.
Understand before you act.
We analyse your IT environment, its costs, risks and dependencies.
You leave with a clear understanding of the situation, the important issues identified and a prioritised set of actions.
You remain free to carry them out with us, your own teams or your existing providers.
Technology leadership by your side.
We work with you over time to help you make technology decisions without needing a full-time CTO.
We can challenge proposals, prioritise initiatives, track budgets, coordinate teams and providers, and maintain a coherent view of your IT.
You remain the decision-maker. We give you the information and perspective you need to make informed decisions.
Want us to take on more? We can stay involved through execution.
Depending on your needs, PLATEFORMS can lead the work using your teams, your existing providers, our own teams or a combination of the three.
Development, infrastructure, DevSecOps, observability, backup and operations: when the work falls within our expertise, we can take responsibility for implementation.
We would rather work with the right specialist than pretend we can do everything ourselves.
Working with a Fractional CTO does not mean replacing your teams or existing providers.
If a relationship works and provides value, our role is to fit it into a clearer operating model, not to undermine it simply to take over the work.
We can work alongside internal teams, challenge a quotation, join discussions with a supplier, lead a project or simply provide the independent perspective you need to make a decision.
You may want to understand more and regain control. Or you may prefer to delegate technology leadership to us.
Either way, our role is to make decisions, responsibilities, costs and risks clear enough for your business to remain in control of its IT.
Trust should never depend on being locked into your provider.
Depending on the scope of the engagement, this may take the form of an IT assessment, a system map, an analysis of costs and dependencies, a risk register, prioritised actions, a budget roadmap or an action plan.
But the deliverable is not the objective.
The objective is to make decisions easier and ensure that important issues no longer remain unresolved in the background.
Your business increasingly depends on its information systems, but technology leadership remains spread between management, internal teams and different providers.
You need experienced technology leadership, but not necessarily five days a week.
That is precisely the value of a Fractional CTO: access to the right expertise, at the right level, when it adds value.
An IT provider usually works within a defined scope. A Fractional CTO looks across the whole technology landscape, helps you make trade-offs between competing priorities and ensures that decisions made by different teams and providers remain aligned with the objectives of the business.
Not if they are meeting your needs. We can work alongside them, coordinate their work or simply help you challenge their recommendations. The objective is not to take over their scope unnecessarily.
No. The assessment and advisory work have value in their own right. The resulting actions can be carried out by your own teams, your existing providers or PLATEFORMS, depending on what makes the most sense.
It depends on the need. An engagement may start with a one-off assessment and end there, or evolve into ongoing support. The level and frequency of involvement should reflect the decisions and technology topics that genuinely need leadership.
Yes. The role can be precisely to provide the direction and leadership that allows technical teams to focus on their work, while giving management a clearer view of technology priorities and decisions.
Tell us how your IT works today, what concerns you or simply what you would like to understand better.
We will start by looking at the situation with you.
Let's talk about your IT