Fractional CTO Advisory Leadership in UK for a Global IT Services firm Giving a global IT services firm the C-suite voice to win complex UK deals
Situation
A global system integrator was losing business in the UK because it could not shape complex deals. It was pivoting from selling resources for projects to selling solutions and integration, but its sales teams did not have the skills to engage at C-suite level. I was hired as CTO for the UK & Ireland and as executive advisor to the large deals team, providing CTO input and guidance in a customer-facing role.
The execution risk
A pivot like this succeeds or fails in the room, not in the strategy deck. If a sales team cannot frame a client’s problem at executive level, the deal defaults back to price and headcount.
What our Fractional Leader did
A nationwide roadside assistance company’s engagement shows the approach. I co-led a half-day innovation workshop, with an industry analyst, for the senior leadership team of a major UK roadside assistance provider. It was running around 30 legacy applications and needed a modernisation strategy.
- Reframed the conversation from “replace the old systems” to “what would this business look like if it started today”, covering mobility trends, new competitors and where the technology was heading.
- Showed how much value was locked in data held in silos and proposed a data fabric and single view of operations that the client would own.
- Turned this into a phased roadmap with new service KPIs (call to arrival, time at the roadside, cost per job) and clear next steps for both organisations.
Our Fractional Leader took the same approach, shaping the technical vision and the commercial case together with the sales team, across the other large deals.
Results
Across my time with the team I was across over $300m large deals shaping and closing. Those I can describe include:
- Roadside assistance provider: a £5m, two-year deal to build a next-generation field service solution, replacing technology dating from the 1980s.
- UK construction group: £20m over three years to create AI, data centre and digital twin technology.
- Electric truck manufacturer: £65m to create an integrated suite of development, manufacturing and fulfilment systems.
- Global consumer health company: a new suite of manufacturing and fulfilment platforms.
- Global pharmaceutical company: introduction of supercomputing to identify existing drugs that could be repurposed for other medical conditions.
Why it matters
Large technology programmes are won by whoever can connect the technical architecture to the business case in front of the board. That is the role Fractional Leader plays for a fractional client: the executive-level voice that makes complex deals, and complex programmes, doable.