A Second Opinion, Before You Sign the Contract.
Project-based technology consulting for Dallas–Fort Worth businesses facing a decision that's too big to guess on — a migration, a vendor selection, a security incident, or a growth pivot. Advice from someone who has actually done the work.
The Wrong Advice Costs More Than the Right Fee.
Every major IT decision — an ERP replacement, a cloud migration, a security stack rebuild, a vendor consolidation — has a right answer and about six plausibly-wrong answers that will still work well enough to look correct for 18 months.
Vendors give the answer that maps to their SKU. Your internal team is close to it and biased by past decisions. Your MSP is optimizing for their margin, not yours. Nobody in that room is neutral.
That's the job of a consultant: to be the neutral, senior voice in the room who has run this play at scale before, and to write it down in a document you can hand to your board.
Winging it
- Vendors pick their own scope
- Decisions based on demos, not fit
- 18 months in before regret shows up
- No documented decision trail
48 Technologies engagement
48 Technologies engagement- Fixed scope, neutral analysis
- Written recommendation with rationale
- Vendor selection you can defend at board
- Documented risk and reversibility
Four Kinds of Decisions.
We take fixed-scope engagements. If your question doesn't fit one of these, tell us — we'll say honestly whether we're the right fit.
Strategy & roadmap
- 3-year technology plan tied to business goals
- Build vs. buy vs. outsource analysis
- M&A technology due diligence
- Post-merger integration plan
Vendor & platform selection
- ERP, CRM, cloud, security stack
- RFP writing and evaluation
- Contract review before signature
- Independent scoring, not vendor pitch
Incident & recovery review
- Post-breach forensics coordination
- Ransomware negotiation guidance
- Insurance claim documentation
- Board-ready incident write-up
Executive advisory
- One-time board or investor briefings
- Fractional CTO for a 90-day sprint
- Second opinion on internal proposals
- PE due-diligence support
From "We Need Help" to a Signed Recommendation.
Every consulting engagement runs on the same clock: a scoped kickoff, active work with your team, and a written deliverable you can act on. Nobody bills hourly. Nobody drags it out.
Fit call, then written SOW.
Free 30-minute call to decide fit. If we move forward, a fixed-scope statement of work is signed before any billable hour. You know the number and the deliverable before we start.
- Free 30-min scoping call
- Written statement of work
- Fixed fee, fixed deliverable
- Clear kickoff date
Interviews, benchmarks, options.
Interviews with your team, vendor conversations, data pulls, competitive benchmarks. Weekly checkpoint so there are no surprises at the end. You see the emerging recommendation before it's final.
- Stakeholder interviews
- Vendor & competitive benchmarks
- Weekly progress checkpoint
- Draft recommendation shared early
Board-ready document. Delivered live.
A board-ready document: findings, options considered, recommendation, cost, risks, and a 90-day action plan. Presented live to leadership. Yours to keep, hand to vendors, or hand to your successor.
- Written recommendation
- Cost, risks, reversibility
- 90-day action plan
- Live leadership presentation
Fixed Scope. Fixed Fee. No Hourly Games.
We don't bill hourly. Hourly billing rewards slow work and punishes speed — backwards for a consulting engagement where the value is the answer, not the hours. Every engagement has a written statement of work with a fixed fee and a fixed deliverable. Typical engagements land between $8,000 and $45,000, with most in the $12K–$25K range for one written recommendation on a decision affecting the next 3–5 years of the business.
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1. 1. Scope & timelineA 2-week vendor selection is priced differently from a 6-week M&A tech diligence. We estimate scope from the kickoff call.
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2. 2. Stakeholders involvedHow many people we interview, how many vendors we assess, how many meetings are on the schedule.
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3. 3. Deliverable depthA one-page recommendation is different from a full board presentation with financial models. You choose the depth at kickoff.
Big-Four Advisory vs. 48 Technologies vs. Your Vendor's "Free" Advice
Three ways to get IT decisions made. Only one of them is scoped, senior, and neutral — and priced right for a 25–200 person DFW business.
Big-Four Advisory
- $150K–$500K minimum engagement
- Partner sells, associate delivers
- Recommendations you can't afford to execute
- 12–16 weeks to deliverable
- You are engagement #47 this quarter
- Optimized for Fortune-500 clients
48 Technologies Consulting
- Engagements $8K–$45K, fixed fee
- The person in the pitch does the work
- Recommendations you can actually execute
- 4–6 weeks to written deliverable
- Ex-Lehman, ex-Nomura operating pedigree
- Handful of active clients, not a factory
Your Vendor's "Free" Advice
- Costs zero — until you buy their SKU
- Every recommendation maps to their product
- No neutral view of alternatives
- Sales incentive baked into every slide
- You find out in year two
- Nobody accountable when it goes wrong
I've watched too many good businesses make a $500K mistake because the only person in the room with a strong opinion was the vendor selling them. That's what a real consultant is for.
Have a Decision on Your Desk? Let's Talk Before You Sign.
30 minutes on the phone, no obligation. If it's a consulting engagement, we'll scope it. If it isn't, we'll tell you what to do instead — for free.