SaaS Scale & Data Integrity Review
An assessment of architecture, resilience, security boundaries and whether reported subscription and revenue figures reconcile with the systems.
Advisory
Fractional CTO and CISO
A fractional CTO and CISO engagement provides senior technology leadership, risk and vendor governance, and board-level reporting on a defined basis, without taking on the delivery work the firm may later be asked to assure.
Who uses this service
- Boards
- Senior technology oversight at board level, with risk reported in terms directors can act on, where there is no chief technology or security officer in place.
- Startups and scale-ups
- Experienced technology and security leadership to set direction, govern vendors and controls, and produce investor-ready reporting, without a full-time hire.
- Investors
- Credible technology leadership placed into a portfolio company, with independent reporting on risk, roadmap and the investment case.
- Non-profit organisations
- Independent advice on systems, vendors and data practices, scoped to a constrained budget.
When to commission it
- There is no senior technology voice at board level and technical decisions are being made without independent oversight.
- Technology risk is not reported to the board in a form the directors can rely on, and the governance gap needs to be closed.
- There is a security leadership gap and no one is accountable for controls, incident response or vendor security.
- The organisation is preparing to scale, raise capital or complete a transaction and needs leadership and reporting to match.
- A technology program has stalled and the board needs experienced leadership to stabilise it and set a defensible direction.
Questions the review answers
Who provides senior technology and security leadership, and what is that person accountable for?
How is technology risk identified, prioritised and reported to the board?
What is the technology roadmap, and what is the investment case behind it?
How are vendors, contracts and security controls governed, and where are the exposures?
Is the organisation ready to scale or to withstand diligence, and what needs to change first?
Evidence normally requested
We request the evidence needed to test the technical position. The exact list depends on the matter.
- The current technology roadmap and any supporting plans or budgets
- The organisation chart and reporting lines for technology, engineering and security
- A vendor and contract register, including hosting, software and service agreements
- Security policies, control documentation and access records
- Incident history, including outages, security events and how they were handled
- Existing board reporting formats and recent technology papers put to the board
Method
Define the mandate and boundaries
We agree the scope of the leadership role, the decisions it covers and its limits, and we record that this advisory work is kept separate from any assurance engagement the firm may later be asked to perform.
Assess current state
We review the roadmap, organisation, vendor register, security controls and incident history to establish the actual position and the exposures the board should know about.
Set governance and reporting
We put in place a technology risk register, a reporting format the board can rely on, and a governance approach for vendors, contracts and security controls.
Deliver leadership on a defined cadence
We provide senior technology and security leadership on the agreed engagement, setting direction, prioritising work and holding vendors and internal teams to the governance in place.
Report to the board
We report technology risk, roadmap progress and the investment case to the board on the agreed cycle, with each material point stated in terms the directors can act on.
What you receive
- Document
- Defined engagement with board reporting and a technology roadmap
- Intended reader
- The board and the organisation's leadership team
- Risk classification
- Technology and security risk is maintained in a register, rated by materiality and reviewed on the agreed reporting cycle.
- Confidence classification
- Each reported position states the basis and its confidence, and open items carry the outstanding evidence or decision needed to close them.
- Includes
- Regular board reports covering technology risk, roadmap progress and the investment case, in a form that can be shared with investors
- A maintained technology roadmap with the investment case behind it
- A technology and security risk register, kept current across the engagement
- A vendor and security governance approach the organisation can continue to run
- Verbal briefing
- Regular board attendance is included where agreed, so the board can question the reporting directly.
Typical timing
Ongoing, on a defined engagement
Commonly excluded from this matter
- Staff augmentation or hands-on build; the engagement is leadership and governance
- Independent assurance of work this engagement directs; advisory and assurance stay separate
- Point-in-time technical reviews: see Technology Due Diligence or Rapid Matter Assessment
Potential add-ons
The engagement is shaped around the organisation. Where the mandate calls for more, it can extend to include:
- Hands-on technical oversight: architecture, code and release reviews with the teams
- Restructuring the software function: teams, roles and delivery process
- Direction of onshore and offshore development teams and their vendors
- Engineering staff training and CPD sessions
- Incident and security readiness: response planning and tabletop exercises
Definition
Clients sometimes describe this as an outsourced CTO, a virtual CISO or a board technology adviser. The engagement provides senior technology leadership and governance. It is not a statutory audit, a legal opinion or an independent assurance report.
Independence and reliance
This is an advisory engagement. It provides leadership, governance and board reporting. It is kept separate from the independent assurance work the firm performs, such as technology due diligence or a provenance review, so that assurance is never used to mark the firm's own advisory work.
We do not remediate or rebuild the systems that the firm may later be asked to assess. Keeping advisory leadership separate from independent assurance removes the incentive to overstate progress or understate risk in order to protect a follow-on engagement.
Where the firm holds an advisory role in an organisation, it will not also act as the independent assurer of that same organisation without disclosing the position and agreeing how the conflict is managed.
Related services and reading
Technology Due Diligence
An independent review of software, architecture, team, security, scalability and technical debt before an investment or transaction decision.
Methodology
How we scope engagements, govern risk and report each material point with its basis and confidence.
Independence
How we separate advisory leadership from independent assurance and apply the no self-remediation rule.
Discuss a matter
Provide a short outline of the decision, transaction or dispute. Do not submit confidential source code, credentials or personal information through the form.