SIRMConsulting
Information technology consultancy — independent advice on the systems a business runs on, and on the decisions about them that are expensive to reverse.
The company additionally holds and deals in its own property interests. That is a separate activity from the consultancy and is conducted on the company's own account.
Practice areas
Consultancy work divides between deciding what to do and checking whether what was done has worked. Both are advisory: the company advises, and the client decides.
A good deal of the work begins with an organisation that already knows something is wrong but cannot yet name it. Systems that were built for a smaller operation and have been extended past their design. Three tools performing overlapping jobs because each was bought to solve one problem in isolation. A supplier arrangement that nobody has read properly since it was signed. The first task is to establish what is actually in place, which is more often an exercise in reading and asking than in technology.
From there the work is typically an assessment of options with the trade-offs stated honestly — including the option of leaving things alone, which is more frequently the right answer than the industry finds it comfortable to admit.
Systems review. Establishing what an organisation runs on, how the parts connect, where the dependencies and the single points of failure sit, and which parts nobody now understands well enough to change safely.
Selection and procurement. Setting requirements first and looking at products second, defining how candidates will be compared, and reading what a supplier's contract actually commits them to.
Delivery assurance. Independent review of a programme already under way: whether the plan is realistic, whether reported progress matches observable progress, and what the recovery options are if it does not.
Continuity and resilience. What happens when a system, a supplier or a site is unavailable — what the organisation would actually do, as distinct from what the plan says it would do.
Second opinion. A short, blunt review of a recommendation the client has already received and wants tested by somebody with no stake in the outcome.
Engagement model
1 — Scope in writing. An engagement starts with a written scope: the question being answered, what will be examined, what will be produced, and what falls outside it. Advisory work goes wrong most often because nobody wrote down what was being asked, so this is not treated as a formality. If the question changes during the work, the scope is amended in writing before the work goes on.
2 — Fixed scope, stated basis. Work is undertaken on a defined scope with the basis of charging agreed before it begins. Where an engagement is open-ended by nature, it is broken into stages with a decision point between them, so that continuing is an active choice instead of a default.
3 — Access and evidence. Findings rest on what can be seen: documents, configurations, contracts, and conversations with the people who operate the systems day to day. Where something could not be verified, the report says so. An assumption that fills a gap is labelled as one and carries a different weight from a finding.
4 — Reporting. A written report addressed to the person who has to act on it. Recommendations are ranked by consequence rather than by ease, each carries its reasoning, and the residual risk of the recommended course is stated alongside the risk of doing nothing.
5 — Independence. The company sells advice and nothing else. It takes no commission from suppliers, resells no products, and has no partner arrangements to disclose. A recommendation to buy a particular thing is worth reading precisely because the company gains nothing whichever way it goes.
6 — Afterwards. Questions about a delivered report are answered without opening a new engagement. Where the client wants support through implementation, that is scoped separately.
Contact
Enquiries in writing. A short description of the situation and the decision it bears on is enough to establish whether the company is the right party to ask.
advisory@sirmconsulting.online
Registered office SIRM Consulting Ltd, 17 Ropers Avenue, London, E4 9EG, United Kingdom