Technology Consulting and Advisory from the people who would have to build it.

A technology advisory engagement produces a written recommendation for a defined technical decision. We review the relevant systems and constraints with your business and technical owners, then investigate the viable options.

You receive:

• Options with their trade-offs and cost drivers.
• A recommended direction and the assumptions behind it.
• A phased roadmap with the sequence and resources needed to act.

Your technical owner retains the decision, and you choose who implements the plan.

Bring in outside technical advice when another engineering perspective would help you evaluate a significant investment before committing to it.

Useful questions include choosing a stack, assessing whether an architecture can scale, testing feasibility against a budget, or comparing build, buy and rebuild options. Your internal owner may already have the expertise and evidence to decide; an advisory review helps when you want assumptions challenged or unfamiliar options assessed.

Yes. We scope technology due diligence around the technical questions that affect your investment or platform-selection decision.

The review can examine architecture, dependencies, maintainability, scalability and operating-cost drivers. We document the findings, assumptions and recommended actions for the systems in scope. It is a technical review, separate from legal or financial diligence and any certification of the investment.

Our guide explains why technical due diligence matters before an exit.

We quote technology advisory against the agreed scope. The main cost drivers are:

• The number of systems and data sources reviewed.
• The depth of code and architecture investigation.
• Stakeholder involvement and the detail needed in the roadmap.

Billing follows the engagement model:

• Time and materials: billed hourly, quoted per project.
• Fixed price: outcome based, quoted per project.
• Team extension: billed monthly per team member.

The AI readiness assessment and cloud cost and AI-readiness audit are packaged routes when their scope fits your question.

We agree an estimated duration after defining the question, systems and depth of investigation. A review of one architecture choice and a review across several systems require different amounts of work and stakeholder time.

Discovery, research and roadmap stages each have a defined output. Most engagements start within two to four weeks; we confirm the start date and review schedule for your scope before work begins.

We assess compatibility with the systems in scope before recommending a change. That means examining interfaces, data flows, dependencies and operating constraints with the people who know the estate.

For changes such as cloud migration and DevOps work, the roadmap needs to account for connected services such as CRM systems. We identify what can be retained, what needs adapting and which assumptions require further validation before implementation.

Compare relevant engineering experience, the recommendation you will receive and the responsibilities of the engagement.

• Ask for delivery examples related to your architecture or platform question. Our cloud planning and AWS/Heroku work provide concrete examples.
• Check whether the proposed output includes options, trade-offs, cost drivers and an implementation sequence. Those are the basis of our roadmap.
• Agree who supplies evidence, evaluates the findings and owns implementation. Our advisory gives your technical owner senior outside input.

Assess security credentials and access arrangements alongside the technical fit.

Our delivery experience helps us assess implementation effort, dependencies and operating costs alongside the technical options. We can also be considered for follow-on development, so that commercial interest belongs in your evaluation of the advice.

We set out the options, trade-offs and cost drivers in writing. You retain the recommendation and choose whether your own team, another provider or unicrew implements it. Advisory and implementation are separately scoped decisions.

Advisory provides a recommendation for a defined decision; CTO as a Service provides continuing technical leadership under an agreed mandate.

Choose advisory when your technical owner will evaluate the options and direct implementation. Choose a fractional or interim CTO when you need someone to take agreed responsibility for technical direction and coordination over time. Your business retains its priorities and approval authority in either model.

Advisory evaluates the technical direction; business analysis defines the requirements and workflows needed to deliver it.

Advisory addresses architecture, stack, feasibility and cost drivers. Business analysis clarifies feature behavior, integration needs and acceptance criteria. When a project starts with a detailed client PRD, the direction may already be specified and requirements work becomes the next question. If both are open, we agree the order and scope of the two activities.