IT Landscape & Capability Assessment
We inventory applications, infrastructure, vendors and skills to show what you own, what it costs and what is underused.
- IT inventory
- Capability assessment
Enterprise Solutions & Digital Transformation
IT Strategy Consulting
We review your architecture, vendors and spend, then set a technology strategy, investment plan and governance model your board and engineering leads can both act on.
- Technology strategy
- Budget planning
- Architecture review
- Governance & risk
- Years of delivery
- 8+
- Years of delivery
- Projects shipped
- 350+
- Projects shipped
- Clients across US, UK, AU & SG
- 200+
- Clients across US, UK, AU & SG
What’s included
Everything You Need to Align IT Spend With Business Goals
We review your technology estate, build a costed IT strategy and roadmap, and support your team through execution.
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Business-Aligned IT Strategy Development
We translate your growth and risk goals into clear technology priorities, so IT spend supports what the business needs next.
- IT strategy document
- Priority matrix
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Enterprise Architecture & Target State Design
We map your current and target architecture across applications, data and infrastructure to guide consistent technology decisions.
- Architecture map
- Target state design
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IT Budget Optimization & Cost Rationalization
We find duplicate tools, unused licenses and overpriced contracts, helping you redirect budget to higher-value projects.
- Cost analysis
- Savings opportunities
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Technology Roadmap & Investment Sequencing
We build a 12 to 36 month roadmap with costs, dependencies and owners that leadership can approve and track.
- Multi-year roadmap
- Investment plan
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Vendor Evaluation & Build-vs-Buy Analysis
We compare vendors and build-versus-buy options against your criteria, so you commit to platforms with clear eyes on cost and fit.
- Vendor scorecard
- Build-vs-buy report
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IT Risk, Security & Compliance Planning
We assess technology risks and plan controls, helping you prepare for audits and protect operations from avoidable outages.
- Risk register
- Control roadmap
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IT Governance & Strategy Execution Support
We set up governance forums and KPIs and support CIO-level reviews, so the strategy turns into delivered projects.
- Governance model
- KPI dashboard
Need something specific?
Why Kramate
Why Business Owners Choose Kramate for Your Technology Plan
We help you spend less on technology and spend it on what matters.
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Honest Advice On Your Spending
Instead of
paying for tools nobody uses
With Kramate
We list what you pay for and what is used, and say plainly what you could drop.
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We Sell You Nothing Extra
Instead of: advice tied to what a supplier wants to sell
With Kramate: We compare your options against your needs, and tell you when building or buying is better.
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A Plan Your Team Can Read
Instead of: a plan only technical people understand
With Kramate: We write in plain words, so owners and managers can all see where the money goes.
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Your Plans Stay Between Us
Instead of: sharing your plans with strangers
With Kramate: We sign an NDA before you share details, and you own every document we write.
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Help Making It Happen
Instead of: a plan that sits in a drawer
With Kramate: We can join your team to carry the plan out, or lead the work ourselves.
Our approach
How We Run Your IT Strategy Consulting
We line up your technology spend with where the business is heading.
6 clear steps 6 deliverables you keep
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IT Landscape Review
We list your systems, contracts, skills and costs, and note what works well and what is ageing.
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Business Needs Interviews
We talk with leaders about their goals, so the technology plan serves the business, not the other way round.
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Buy or Build Review
We compare vendors and the choice to buy or build, looking at cost, risk and fit.
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Technology Plan
We write a multi-year plan that puts investments in sensible order, with costs and risks in view.
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Risk & Governance Setup
We map technology risks and agree who decides what, so spending stays under control.
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Plan Follow-Through
We help your team start the plan, check progress and adjust it as the business changes.
Tools & technologies
Technologies We Use for IT Strategy
We compare cloud, identity and monitoring options with real cost and performance data.
- Miro: Online whiteboard for workshops and process mapping.
- Confluence: Keeps requirements, decisions and handover notes in one shared place.
- Jira: Tracks work, priorities and delivery progress.
- Excel: Spreadsheets many back-office processes still depend on.
- AWS: Amazon cloud hosting and services.
- Azure: Microsoft cloud hosting and services.
- Google Cloud: Google infrastructure for data, AI and applications.
- Terraform: Defines cloud setups as code so they can be repeated.
- Datadog: Monitors applications, infrastructure and logs in one place.
- Grafana: Dashboards and alerts for live system metrics.
- Power BI: Dashboards that turn data into clear business views.
- Okta: Single sign-on and multi-factor login for staff and customers.
- Auth0: Login and user identity service for web and mobile apps.
- Keycloak: Open-source single sign-on and user access management.
- Kubernetes: Runs and scales containerised software automatically.
- Docker: Packages software so it runs the same everywhere.
- GitHub Actions: Automates testing and releases on every code change.
Expert guide
IT Strategy Consulting: A Complete Guide for Businesses
IT strategy consulting gives leadership a clear, shared answer to a practical question: which technology investments should we make, in what order, and why. A consultant reviews your current systems, costs and skills, relates them to business goals, and produces a plan that executives, finance and engineers can all use.
It is most valuable at decision points, such as a growth push, an acquisition, a failing platform or a budget cycle. A good strategy is short, specific and revisited, not a binder that is filed after the workshop.
This guide describes what the engagement produces, how to assess a portfolio, how to make build, buy or partner decisions, how governance and security fit, regional considerations, costs and partner selection. Some vendors call it technology strategy or IT advisory.
When a company needs IT strategy consulting
Signs that a strategy review is overdue are usually visible in daily operations rather than in a technology audit:
- Technology spending keeps rising but nobody can say what it achieves.
- Teams buy their own tools, creating duplicates and security gaps.
- Major systems are near end of support, with no replacement plan.
- Leadership disagrees on priorities, so projects start and stall.
- A merger, new market or new product will stress the current stack.
If the main problem is a single failed project, a targeted review may serve better than a full strategy.
What an IT strategy should contain
The point is to leave you with decisions, not description. A useful IT strategy usually includes these parts:
- Business context: the goals technology must support, in the leaders’ own terms.
- Guiding principles: a handful of rules, for example prefer standard platforms, or keep customer data in one place.
- Current-state portfolio: applications, owners, costs, risk and fit.
- Target architecture direction: where systems and data should converge, using a method such as TOGAF (opens in a new tab) if your organization needs a formal one.
- Roadmap: sequenced initiatives with dependencies and owners.
- Funding and governance model: who decides, how spending is reviewed and how benefits are tracked.
- Skills plan: what to hire, train or source from partners.
Assessing your application portfolio
Start by listing every application with an owner, purpose, users, hosting, annual running cost and support status. Then place each in one of four dispositions, an approach that is widely used in portfolio reviews.
| Disposition | Meaning | Typical trigger |
|---|---|---|
| Keep | Invest modestly and maintain | Fits the business and is healthy |
| Improve | Extend, integrate or re-platform | Valuable but limited by age or isolation |
| Replace | Retire in favor of another product or build | Poor fit, high cost, or unsupported |
| Retire | Switch off and archive data | Duplicate or unused |
Replacing in slices is usually safer than a single cutover. The strangler fig pattern (opens in a new tab) explains the idea, and legacy software modernization covers the execution.
Build, buy or partner: making technology decisions
A strategy earns its keep by making recurring decisions faster. For each capability, ask whether it differentiates you. Commodity needs, such as payroll or standard CRM, are normally bought. Capabilities that define your service are candidates to build. Where you lack skills or capacity, a partner may deliver or run the work.
Compare options on total cost of ownership, time to value, integration effort, vendor dependence and exit options. Platforms such as Odoo (opens in a new tab) and Dynamics 365 (opens in a new tab) illustrate the buy path, and are named neutrally as examples; your evaluation should compare several.
Governance and service management
Governance should be light but real: an architecture review for major purchases, a single owner for each application, and a regular portfolio review. Service-management practice such as ITIL (opens in a new tab) offers a common vocabulary for how IT services are planned, delivered and improved, which is useful when business and IT teams talk past each other.
Align governance to decisions people actually make. If approval takes longer than the purchase, teams will bypass it.
Security, resilience and risk in the strategy
Security belongs in the strategy as a set of principles and funded work, not an appendix. Typical content includes identity and access standards, data classification, backup and recovery targets, supplier risk review and incident readiness. Where architecture is moving to many small services, NIST SP 800-204 (opens in a new tab) offers security strategies for microservices-based systems.
Also note single points of failure: a key system with one maintainer, or a supplier without an exit path.
Making the strategy stick
Strategies fail when they are announced, not adopted. Keep the document short, publish it to the teams it affects and tie each roadmap item to a named owner. Hold a quarterly review where you update priorities, and retire items that no longer matter.
Involve engineers and department heads while drafting. People support what they helped shape, and they know which assumptions are unrealistic.
Regional considerations: USA, UK, Australia and Singapore
Where data and customers sit shapes architecture decisions. Check the following with legal counsel.
- USA: sector rules such as HIPAA and state privacy laws; federal contractors face additional requirements.
- UK: UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018, with rules on international transfers.
- Australia: the Privacy Act 1988 and the Australian Privacy Principles, including obligations when data goes overseas.
- Singapore: the Personal Data Protection Act and its transfer limitation obligation.
These affect hosting regions, supplier choices and where support staff may access data, so they belong in the strategy, not after it.
Cost factors and how to plan a budget
The size of an IT strategy consulting engagement follows organization size, number of applications and business units, depth of the target architecture, and how many stakeholders must be interviewed. Whether the consultant also helps carry out the first initiatives changes the effort considerably.
Fixed-fee engagements work for a defined assessment and roadmap. Hourly advisory suits ongoing decision support, and a dedicated team suits strategy followed directly by delivery. Give the consultant fast access to cost data and system owners; delays there usually cost more than anything else.
How Kramate supports IT strategy work
Start with a free consultation and receive a detailed estimate within 24 hours. A dedicated project manager keeps the work organized, updates arrive daily in Slack or Teams, and each two-week round closes with a review. An NDA comes before detailed discussions, and everything produced belongs to you. Because Kramate can lead delivery or embed in your team, strategy can flow into execution; see our approach and the related digital transformation consulting and cloud consulting services.
Frequently asked questions
What is an IT strategy?
It is a documented plan that links technology investment to business goals. It sets principles, describes the current and target systems, sequences initiatives, and defines how decisions and spending are governed.
How do you build an IT roadmap?
List business goals, assess current applications and risks, identify initiatives, then order them by value and dependency with owners and review dates. Keep it short, publish it to the teams it affects and update it regularly.
What is the difference between IT strategy and digital strategy?
IT strategy focuses on the systems, data, infrastructure and teams that run the business. Digital strategy is broader and covers customer experience and new business models. They should be consistent with each other.
When does a company need an IT strategy review?
Typical moments include rapid growth, a merger, aging core systems, rising costs without clear value, security concerns, an upcoming budget cycle, or leadership disagreement about the priorities that technology should serve.
How do you decide whether to build or buy software?
Buy for commodity needs that products meet well. Build where the capability differentiates you or integrations dominate. Compare total cost of ownership, time to value, integration effort and exit options for each candidate before deciding.
Does IT strategy consulting include implementation?
Not necessarily. Some engagements stop at the roadmap; others continue into delivery. Ask your partner to state the boundary, who owns each deliverable and what the handover to your team includes.
Sources and further reading
- The TOGAF Standard (opens in a new tab)The Open Group
- ITIL (opens in a new tab)PeopleCert
- Strangler Fig Application (opens in a new tab)Martin Fowler
- Odoo Documentation (opens in a new tab)Odoo
- Dynamics 365 documentation (opens in a new tab)Microsoft
- NIST SP 800-204 Security Strategies for Microservices-based Application Systems (opens in a new tab)NIST
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Cost depends on company size, number of systems and sites, depth of review, and whether you need a roadmap only or ongoing advisory. Interviews, cost analysis and security review add effort. We give a no-obligation estimate within 24 hours.
We interview stakeholders, review systems and spending, define gaps and options, then build a prioritised roadmap with costs and risks. Pace depends on how available leaders are and how complete your system records are. Findings are shared along the way.
You own them. Kramate signs an NDA before detailed discussions, and all assessments, roadmaps and supporting analysis transfer to you. Findings about your systems and spending are sensitive, so access is limited to the project team.
We support your CIO and team rather than replace them. We interview your staff, use their knowledge and present options for them to decide. The roadmap is written so internal teams can run it, with us available for specific pieces if needed.
It usually covers current-state review, business goals, target architecture, application and infrastructure choices, security approach, sourcing, budget phasing and a delivery roadmap. It links technology spending to business outcomes, with clear priorities and trade-offs. The result is a plan your leaders can review and your teams can act on.
Review it at least yearly, and whenever business direction changes, such as a merger, new market or major vendor change. Quarterly check-ins on progress keep it alive. A strategy that sits in a drawer stops being useful quickly.
Map each major system and project to a business goal. Items that support no goal, duplicate others or lack an owner are red flags. Ask what would break if you stopped paying for them. We run this review as part of the assessment.
Taking new projects
Let’s talk about your IT Strategy Consulting needs
Tell us about your project and get a free consultation and estimate within 24 hours.
- We reply within 4 business hours A real consultant reads your brief — no bot, no queue.
- 30-minute discovery call We dig into goals, constraints and budget. NDA signed on request.
- Proposal in 24 hours Scope, timeline, team and price — clear enough to decide on.
NDA on request You own the IP No obligation Free estimate