What is a fractional CTO?
Someone senior who steers the technology for your business part-time, instead of you employing a full-time IT director you cannot justify. In practice it means one person who understands the whole picture: what you run on, what you spend, which suppliers you are tied to, what is coming next, and what to do about it. You get the judgement without the salary, and you can use as much or as little of it as the business actually needs.
Is my business too small for a fractional CTO?
Probably not, and this is the wrong way round to think about it. The question is not headcount, it is whether anybody is currently thinking about the technology as a whole. Plenty of businesses with ten people have four suppliers, a dozen subscriptions and nobody reading the contracts. That is enough to be worth an outside pair of eyes. If it genuinely is not worth it yet, I will tell you so.
How is this different from my IT support provider?
It sits alongside them rather than replacing them. Your IT provider looks after laptops, networks, email and the things that keep the office running day to day, and a good one is worth keeping. I look at the level above that: whether the systems still talk to each other, whether you are on the right contracts at the right price, where the data sits, what should be built or bought next, and whether the money is going somewhere sensible. Different job, different question.
Do you take commission from the suppliers you recommend?
No. I do not resell software, I do not take referral fees, and I am not a partner of anybody whose product I might suggest. It matters because it is the only way a recommendation is worth anything: if I am paid by the vendor, you have no way of knowing whether the advice is advice. If a cheaper option is the right one, I have no reason not to say so.
What does a fractional CTO cost in Jersey?
It depends how much of it you want, and it is deliberately not a big commitment. Ongoing arrangements start at £200 a month for keeping an eye on things, answering questions and handling small changes. Anything that turns into a real piece of work is quoted as a fixed price before it starts, worked out at £80 an hour, and that quote is a ceiling rather than a target: if it goes quicker than expected, you pay the lower number. There is no notice period: tell me in writing and it stops.
Can this start as a one-off piece of work?
Yes, and it usually does. Most people come to me with one specific problem rather than a decision to hire someone senior. The work tends to widen from there, because once somebody is looking at the whole picture the next thing worth doing becomes obvious. There is no point at which it has to turn into an arrangement, and it only should if it is plainly earning its keep.
Asking a question costs nothing, whether you are a client or not, and there is no limit on how many. If you want a considered look at the whole picture before deciding anything, the digital once-over→ is the usual starting point.
