Static-first: what an SME site actually needs to do
The case for shipping HTML and CSS to a client who will not touch a build step, and where that argument stops being honest.
Freelance IT consultant. I do the thinking and the doing.
IT leadership and hands-on technical delivery, from someone who's spent 30+ years doing both. Independent, remote-first, London & the South East.
ROUTE ONE
I run an organisation
You need someone senior to own the decisions and stay long enough to see them through. Strategy, systems, suppliers, and a plain answer when you ask what it will cost.
IT strategySupport & managed careCRM & dataInterim & fractional leadership
ROUTE TWO
I work with clients
Agencies and developers: an extra pair of senior hands, or the person who talks to the client's IT department so you don't have to. Nothing gets lost in translation: I still write the code myself.
Web developmentCRM & data migrationsIntegrationsTechnical partnership
WHAT I DO
Eight things, and most engagements draw on two or three of them. You are buying days, not a package.
01
IT strategy & roadmaps
What to do next year and why, costed, in language your board can challenge.
02
Web development
Sites and web applications built to last, fast by default, handed over documented.
03
CRM & data
Selection, data models and migrations, run so you can trust the outcome.
04
Infrastructure, cloud & integrations
Networks, servers, tenancies, and the systems that need to talk to each other: designed, connected and left in a state someone else can pick up.
05
IT support & managed care
Someone reliable behind the day-to-day, and someone who fixes the causes as well as the tickets.
06
Interim & fractional leadership
A gap where your IT lead used to be, or ongoing senior leadership on a fractional basis. The projects still get run; nothing waits for a permanent hire.
07
Agency technical partnership
Named on your pitch, in the room for the technical questions, available by the day once you win it.
08
Training & handover
Your team able to run it without me. Written down, not just demonstrated.
WHY THE ADVICE LANDS
I've sat on both sides of the IT relationship: running it, and being the one who has to fix it when it breaks.
Then
An international computer manufacturer, enterprise systems support and software engineering
Later
Web development and IT project management
After that
Membership organisations, untangling and running their CRM systems
Recently
Director of IT, international charity
Now
Independent, and still building
Recent writing
All articlesWriting a CRM migration you can run twice
Idempotent imports, reconciliation reports, and why the dry run is the actual deliverable. With the reconciliation query I hand to finance teams.
Nobody owns your roadmap. That is the actual problem
Why competent support and stalled progress so often turn up together, and the cheapest way to tell which one you are dealing with.
Start with a conversation.
Half an hour, no charge. If I am not the right fit I will say so.