Strategy and Advisory
Clear choices, costed and sequenced
Before anything is built, we help you decide what to build, what to buy, what to keep and in what order, with the costs written down.
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Our view
A technology strategy is a short list of decisions, each with a cost, an owner and a date. Anything longer is a wish list. We work with your leadership to make those decisions, test them against your budget and your people, and set them in an order you can actually deliver.
Our advice is shaped by building and running systems. The people who advise you have shipped the kind of work they recommend.
We are independent. We do not sell software, and we will tell you when the right answer is to do less.
By the numbers
Where the money goes, and where it could
- 61%
- of the average technology budget is spent keeping existing systems running.
- 30%
- or about half as much, is what the best performers among the 140 leaders we surveyed spend on upkeep. They reinvest the rest.
- 320
- technology leaders told us where they will spend, and cut, in 2027.
- 6 weeks
- for a typical KIASA strategy engagement, from first interview to costed roadmap.
The maintenance dividend, KIASA research, 2026; Platform pulse 2027, KIASA research, 2026.
What we do
Decisions you can act on
Technology strategy
A small number of clear decisions tied to business goals, each with a cost, an owner and a date.
Architecture roadmaps
Where your systems are, where they need to be and the sequence of steps between, with each step paying for some of the next.
Build, buy or keep
An honest comparison of the options for each major system, including the option of doing nothing yet.
Cost and value cases
Business cases your finance team will recognize, with ranges rather than false precision and assumptions written down.
Operating model
How technology teams are organized, funded and measured, so the strategy has people and budget behind it.
Program recovery
An independent review of a program in trouble, and a plan to reset it, rescope it or stop it cleanly.
Client work
Our work in action
Insurance
Halden Mutual chose to replace its claims core one product line at a time
A six-week roadmap that turned a feared big-bang project into a sequence of safe steps.
Read the case study
Education
Ashby Vale University cut its system count from 140 to 60
A five-year roadmap, agreed by every faculty, that funds new services from what it retires.
Explore education
Life sciences
Fenmoor Biologics decided not to replace its lab systems, yet
A build, buy or keep review that saved a year and redirected the budget to data.
Explore life sciences
Public sector
Riverholt County Council reset a stalled program in eight weeks
An honest review, a smaller scope and a first release that reached residents four months later.
Explore public sector
What we think
Thinking on strategy
Research report
The maintenance dividend
The research behind our advice: what the best performers do differently with their budgets.
Research report
Platform pulse: what engineering leaders will fund in 2027
Flat budgets, rising expectations. Where 320 leaders are moving money in 2027.
Research report
AI in the back office: where the first real savings are showing up
Where AI belongs in a technology strategy, based on what 60 teams actually saved.
Perspective
Why the second year of a cloud migration matters more than the first
A strategy that ends at migration misses most of the value. Planning for the year after.
“We came in with a list of forty projects. We left with seven decisions, a budget for each and the confidence to say no to the rest.”
Questions we hear
Before you start
How long does a strategy take?
Usually six weeks. Longer engagements tend to produce longer documents, not better decisions. We can go deeper on a single question afterwards if it needs it.
Do you expect to build what you recommend?
No. Many of our strategy clients build with their own teams or with others. If you want us to help deliver, we will propose that separately, after the decisions are made.
Who from our side needs to be involved?
The people who own the budget and the people who run the systems. A strategy only the technology team believes in rarely survives the first budget round.
What do we get at the end?
A short document with the decisions, the costs, the sequence and the risks, and a session with your leadership to agree them. Supporting analysis is handed over in full.
Our leaders
Talk to the people who lead this work
Elena Marsh
Managing Partner
Leads KIASA and still advises clients directly on their largest technology decisions.
Thandiwe Dlamini
Practice Lead, Strategy and Advisory
Has written technology strategies for insurers, universities and councils. Led the Halden Mutual roadmap.
Henrik Sørensen
Principal, Cost and Value
Builds business cases finance teams believe. Co-wrote The maintenance dividend.
Isabel Navarro
Principal, Program Recovery
Resets programs that have stalled, and stops the ones that should stop.
Facing a decision that will shape the next five years?
Talk to a partner. We will tell you in the first conversation whether we can help, and how.