No. EPX IT includes IT strategy, the named Partner Consultant and the business reviews in the service desk agreement, so there is no separate fee for them. The exception is a vCIO engagement, which is dedicated senior time spent on how one part of the business operates rather than on the health of the IT estate.
IT Strategy and Consultancy
IT strategy for growing UK businesses, included in your service desk agreement rather than sold as a separate project.
Most technology decisions get made in the wrong order. Something breaks, or the business grows faster than the systems under it, and a decision that should have been planned 18 months ago gets taken in a fortnight.
IT decisions that get made under pressure
The pattern EPX IT sees most often is the same one. Nobody senior looks at the technology until something forces the issue, so the timing gets set by the problem rather than by the business, and what follows is familiar:
- Hardware gets replaced when it fails instead of when it was due
- Licences renew because the renewal date arrived rather than because anyone reviewed them
- A system gets chosen in a fortnight because the old one has already stopped, and the business lives with that choice for five years
None of it looks like a crisis from the outside. The costs arrive gradually and the constraints only show up when the business tries something new, by which time nobody remembers the decision that caused them.
IT strategy is included in your service desk agreement
EPX IT does not sell strategy as a separate project. Every partner on a service desk agreement gets a named Partner Consultant and business reviews, from the start, at no additional cost. Quarterly is the standard rhythm and it is yours to set, so some partners meet twice a year instead.
That is a deliberate decision rather than a giveaway. Technology decisions go wrong when nobody is looking at them, and a business that has to agree a fee before anyone will think about its IT will put it off until circumstance decides it instead. It also means a review can be spent on the awkward question nobody has raised yet.
Business reviews, quarterly as standard
Quarterly suits most businesses and nobody is held to it. Whichever rhythm you choose, your Partner Consultant with EPX IT works through the same agenda:
- Budget, so hardware refreshes, licence renewals and migrations are planned rather than discovered
- Progress against the roadmap, and whether the timeline still matches where the business is going
- Security posture, and what has changed since the last review
- Business continuity, which services are backed up and which are not, and whether that matches what the business assumed
- Infrastructure and capacity, and whether what you have will carry the next stage of growth
- where AI fits, which is a board level question now rather than a technical one
The Shropshire and West Midlands Agricultural Society, which runs the West Mid Showground, has worked with EPX IT for five years, and quarterly strategic reviews have run throughout. When the network needed rebuilding, the work sat outside the budget available at the time:
- A phased approach was developed instead, improving performance and resilience in stages the Society could fund
- A dedicated 200Mb leased line followed as part of that continued investment
- Reviews still cover budgets, network performance, security posture and future infrastructure requirements
Business continuity, what is backed up and what is not
Business continuity is the review item that most often produces a decision. EPX IT goes through what is protected service by service, checks the type of backup and how long each one would take to bring back against what the business genuinely needs, and anything that falls short goes on the roadmap with a cost against it.
Most businesses have never had that conversation, so the answer is an assumption rather than a fact. Backup and disaster recovery then delivers whatever the roadmap calls for, so this is where the question gets asked and that is where it gets answered.
Why growing businesses move IT strategy to EPX IT
EPX IT has supported UK businesses for over 20 years, currently manages 2,500 computers for 38 fully managed partners across Staffordshire and the West Midlands, and holds Cyber Essentials Plus certification.
Your Partner Consultant knows your systems, your priorities and your budget cycle, which is what makes a quarterly review a working session rather than a presentation.
They are supported by a service team that sees the estate every day, so what gets discussed at board level matches what is happening underneath it. That is what businesses usually mean by having no visibility of IT: the information exists and nobody brings it upstairs.
Working alongside your own IT manager
Plenty of the businesses EPX IT works with already have an IT manager, and keeping them is usually the right answer. One person cannot cover everything a modern estate needs, and that is a scope problem rather than a competence one.
Your Partner Consultant works with them rather than around them, taking on the parts that are hard to cover from inside a single role, such as security, business continuity and the roadmap, while your own person keeps doing the work that only somebody inside the business can do.
Where a vCIO comes in
A Partner Consultant covers security, setup and business continuity, and understands your business well. What the role does not include is dedicated time to sit inside one line of business application, work out how the business functions around it, and advise the directors on changing that.
That is a vCIO, and it is separate work. The industry calls it a virtual chief information officer, and in practice it is senior time bought deliberately and aimed at business improvement rather than at keeping the estate healthy. It usually involves a system EPX IT does not otherwise support, because the question is how the business runs rather than whether the technology is sound.
Is this right for your business?
IT strategy and consultancy from EPX IT is a good fit if:
- Major IT decisions are being made under pressure, in response to incidents or growth, rather than as part of a plan
- Budget is going into technology without confidence it matches business priorities or risk appetite
- Technology is central to operations, delivery or revenue and nobody owns its direction at leadership level
- You have an IT manager who is covering more ground than one person reasonably can
- You want assurance that today's decisions will not become tomorrow's cost or constraint
What reactive IT decisions cost you
Decisions get made either way. Without a plan they get made by whatever broke most recently, which is how businesses end up paying for systems they have outgrown and replacing equipment at the least convenient moment.
With a review rhythm in place the position is known instead. EPX IT can tell you what is coming, what it will cost and what happens if it is deferred, so a decision gets taken early enough to still have options rather than late enough to have one.
Frequently asked questions
Do you charge extra for IT strategy?
What does IT strategy and consultancy cover?
What is the difference between IT support and IT strategy?
How often should a business review its IT?
Do we need an IT strategy if we already have an IT provider?
What is a vCIO, and do we need one?
Is IT strategy only worth it for larger businesses?
Should AI be part of our IT strategy?
Talk to EPX IT
If technology decisions in your business are being made faster than they are being planned, a conversation with our team is the next step.
Our comparison of in-house IT and a managed service provider works through that decision first, if you have not settled it yet.
