IT Strategy Consulting for the Mid-Market
A 12-month roadmap, a budget your board can read, and the contract team to run it once the consultant leaves.
IT strategy consulting at KORE1 is a fixed-scope, eight-to-ten-week engagement. A vendor-neutral fractional CIO reviews your systems, spend and people, hands you a 12-month roadmap and budget, and we staff the contract team that runs it.
Last updated: September 30, 2026
- This page
- A bounded engagement with a start date, an end date and three documents you keep, followed by the people to carry out the plan.
- Not this page
- An ongoing technology executive on a few days a week, with no end date, is a fractional CIO. Picking an ERP is its own job, handled by our ERP selection advisory.
Most companies between $50 million and $500 million in revenue don’t have a CIO, so the CFO owns IT by default, along with an IT manager, maybe two help desk people, a managed services provider and a pile of contracts that renew on dates nobody wrote down. Sound familiar? It’s normal. It also breaks.
That setup works until the business asks for something bigger than a password reset. Then somebody needs a plan, a number and a team. We sell all three. The team comes from the same IT staffing desk that has been placing technology people since 2005.
What IT Strategy Consulting Delivers in Eight to Ten Weeks
Three documents. Then a staffing plan. Everything else is a meeting, and you’ve had enough of those.
- A current-state reviewEvery system, contract, renewal date and admin login on one list, plus who actually holds the knowledge. It usually turns up software nobody has opened in a year, and at least one account only a former employee could get into. Almost every time.
- A 12-month roadmapEight to twelve initiatives, sequenced by what the business has coming. An insurance renewal. A warehouse move. A software contract that expires in January whether you’re ready or not.
- A budgetEach initiative priced three ways (your people’s time, vendor bids, and contract labor) so the CFO can approve it line by line instead of staring at one scary total and saying no to all of it.
- The team planWhich work your staff can absorb, which belongs to a vendor, and which needs a contract specialist for a few months. That last list? That’s us.
None of it lives in a slide deck. The roadmap fits on one page, and the budget is a spreadsheet your controller can reconcile. That’s on purpose.
A 12-Month IT Strategy, Costed Card by Card
This is roughly what the week-eight deliverable looks like. One card per initiative, four quarters, a price on every card and a stamp for who does the work.
Q1Stop the leaks
- Cancel the software nobody logs into Why now: three annual renewals land in March In-house$0 new spend
- Multi-factor sign-in on every account, backups restored and tested Why now: the cyber insurance renewal asks in April Contract$58,000 Security analyst · 400 hrs at $145
Q1 total$58,000
Q2One version of the numbers
- Move the file server into SharePoint Why now: the server warranty ends in June Vendor$24,000
- A reporting layer on the ERP, so month-end stops living in spreadsheets Why now: the close takes nine working days Contract$67,920 Data engineer · 480 hrs at $141.50
Q2 total$91,920
Q3Fix the warehouse
- Replace the warehouse scanning app before its vendor drops it Why now: support ends in Q4 Contract$59,840 Software developer · 640 hrs at $93.50
- Somebody whose only job is running that project Why now: the IT manager can’t do this and the help desk Contract$41,600 IT project manager · 320 hrs at $130
Q3 total$101,440
Q4Decide, then test
- Renegotiate the ERP contract or put it out to bid Why now: it renews in January In-house$0 new spend
- Run a real disaster-recovery test, not a tabletop Why now: nobody has restored from backup in two years Vendor$9,000
Q4 total$9,000
8 initiatives · $260,360 in change spend over 12 months$227,360 of it, 87%, buys 1,840 hours from four people the company doesn’t employ
Look at where the money went. Not software. People.
That’s the pattern on nearly every mid-market roadmap we see, because the licences are mostly bought already and what’s missing is somebody with the hours and the specific skill to finish the job. A plan that doesn’t say who does the work is a wish list with a total at the bottom.
Some cards write themselves once the dates are on the table. Microsoft’s Dynamics GP lifecycle page puts the end of support on the last day of 2029, so a GP shop’s roadmap carries a Dynamics migration decision whether anyone likes it or not. And the Q1 security card follows CISA’s guidance on multi-factor authentication, which is also roughly what your insurer is about to ask you to prove on the renewal form, usually in writing and usually against a deadline. For the rest of the security cards, the NIST Cybersecurity Framework is the usual reference point.
Who Runs the IT Strategy Once It’s Approved
Every card gets one of three stamps. The rule we use for deciding which is short enough to remember.
- Your peopleIf the work is ongoing and somebody on staff already knows the system, keep it inside. Cancelling unused licences and renegotiating a contract belong here. No invoice.
- A vendorWhen the job is a commodity with a fixed scope, get a bid. Your MSP can move a file server. Don’t pay an hourly specialist to do it slowly.
- A contract specialistIf it needs a skill you’ll use for four months and then never again, rent it. A data engineer for the reporting build. A security analyst to close the access gaps before the auditor finds them. Or a Power Automate developer for the approvals nobody has time to build.
That’s our day job. We put contract IT specialists on our W-2, matched to the cards, and each one rolls off when their card is done. Most contract IT seats bill between $65 and $190 an hour in 2026, and the role-by-role bands are in our contractor rate guide.
When several cards stack into one project with a go-live date, it stops being a few contractors and becomes a team with a go-live, a project manager and a roll-off schedule that somebody has to actually hold people to. That’s IT project staffing, and the same roadmap feeds it.
How an IT Strategy Consulting Engagement Runs
Fixed scope. Fixed fee. Both go into the signed scope, and here’s the order it happens in.
- Weeks 1 to 3, the current-state reviewInterviews with every department head. Not just IT. The warehouse manager knows which system actually breaks. Finance pulls a year of IT spend from the general ledger, and the consultant builds the inventory from that, not from anyone’s memory of what they think they’re paying for.
- Weeks 4 to 6, the roadmapInitiatives get ranked against what the business has coming in the next four quarters, then sequenced so no quarter asks the same three people to do everything at once while also keeping the lights on.
- Weeks 7 and 8, the budget and the team planEvery card priced, every card stamped, reviewed line by line with the CFO. Weeks 9 and 10 are there for the board version if you need one. Most do.
- After that, executionWe recruit the contract seats in the order the roadmap calls for them. You can keep the consultant on as a fractional CIO to run the plan, or hand it to your IT manager with the document as the brief. Your call.
“Most of what I get called in to fix isn’t a software problem. It’s three departments doing the same job three different ways.”
Colin has spent eight years untangling mid-market tech stacks, mostly ERP, warehouse and ecommerce systems that grew up separately and never learned to talk. It’s why the review starts with department heads instead of the server closet. His longer argument for renting this kind of judgment is in the rentable CIO.
IT Strategy Consulting, a Fractional CIO, or a Full-Time Hire?
All four answer the question of who decides where IT goes next. They cost very different amounts, and they last very different lengths of time.
| Option | How long | Typical cost | What you end up with | Right when |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IT strategy engagement | Eight to ten weeks | $14K to $42K fixed | Review, roadmap, budget, team plan | You need a plan and a number before you commit to anyone |
| Fractional CIO | Open-ended | $5K to $15K a month | A technology executive, part-time | The plan exists and somebody senior has to run it |
| MSP vCIO review | A quarterly meeting | Bundled into the MSP fee | A hardware refresh schedule | The question is laptops and firewalls, not the business |
| Full-time CIO | Years | $230K to $350K total comp | A permanent executive and a search | Technology decisions come up every week, not every quarter |
The fixed fee reflects 80 to 140 hours of senior time at the $175 to $300 hourly advisory rate. Monthly fractional ranges match our fractional CIO explainer, and permanent CIO pay is in the CIO salary guide.
A lot of companies do two of these in a row. Strategy first, so the fractional CIO walks into a plan instead of writing one on your dime. Cheaper that way.
8–10 wks
from kickoff to an approved roadmap and budget
17 days
to fill the typical KORE1 IT role, contract or permanent
92%
of the people we place are still there a year on
$65–$190
an hour covers most contract IT seats in 2026
Figures from KORE1’s placement record since 2005 and the 2026 contractor rate guide.
Four Ways the Roadmap Gets Staffed
The strategy engagement ends. The work doesn’t. These are the routes our clients take from the last page of the plan.
Run the plan
Keep a fractional CIO
The same senior person, one or two days each week, accountable for the roadmap they wrote.
Fractional CIO servicesFill a card
One contract specialist
A security analyst, data engineer or developer for the months one initiative needs them.
Contract staffingFill a quarter
A project team
Several seats with a go-live date and a written plan for when each one rolls off.
IT project staffingIf it’s the ERP
Selection before build
When the roadmap’s biggest card is a new ERP, the choice gets its own advisory.
Fractional CIO for ERP
Common Questions
What does an IT strategy consultant actually do?
An IT strategy consultant works out what your technology should do for the business over the next year, what that costs, and who does the work. In practice that means interviewing department heads, inventorying systems and contracts, then writing a sequenced roadmap and a line-item budget the CFO can approve without calling a meeting to decode it.
How much does IT strategy consulting cost for a mid-sized company?
$14,000 to $42,000 covers most fixed-scope engagements we scope. The range reflects 80 to 140 hours of senior advisory time, depending on how many locations, systems and business units the review has to cover. The fee is fixed before work starts. No hourly meter.
How long before we have a roadmap in hand?
Eight to ten weeks. The first three go to the current-state review, the next three to the roadmap, and the last stretch to pricing it and getting the CFO’s sign-off. Companies with several entities or an acquisition in progress sometimes run a little longer.
Do we need a CIO before we can have an IT strategy?
No. Most of our clients don’t have one, and plenty never will. The roadmap is written so an IT manager and a CFO can run it together, with contract specialists for the heavy lifting. A fractional CIO is an option afterward, not a prerequisite.
Will the consultant steer us toward particular software?
It shouldn’t, and the scope says so in writing. The fee is fixed and paid for advice, not tied to any purchase, and any partner relationship the consultant has with a vendor is disclosed before the review starts. “Keep what you have” is a legitimate recommendation, and it’s often the cheapest line on the budget.
What happens once the roadmap is approved?
You start on Q1, and we staff whichever cards need people you don’t have. That might be one contract security analyst, or a small project team for a larger initiative. You’re under no obligation to use us for any of it, although most clients do because the plan already names the roles.
We pay an MSP that runs a quarterly vCIO review. Isn’t that the same thing?
Fair question, and usually not. A vCIO review from a managed services provider covers the infrastructure that provider supports, like laptops, firewalls and licences. It rarely touches the ERP, the warehouse systems or the reporting problem, and nobody expects an MSP to recommend work it doesn’t sell.
Send Us Last Year’s IT Spend
A rough list of your systems, last year’s IT spend from the ledger, and whatever is keeping the CFO up. That’s enough to start. We’ll scope the engagement on one call and quote a fixed fee.
Scope My IT Strategy Engagement →Or call 949-706-6990
