What is the decision about?
IT Consulting South Africa is advice bought separately from the people who will do the work, which is the point of it. Describe the decision you are facing and compare day rates, scope and what each consultant would produce.
Describe the decision and get consulting quotes. We pass your request to LEADERR APPROVED providers who cover the area.
Get the Best QuoteWhat Consultants Are Usually Asked For
- An IT audit. What you have, what it costs, what is at risk and what is about to break.
- A strategy and budget. A three year plan with numbers, usable at board level.
- System selection. Requirements, a shortlist and a fair comparison of vendors.
- A second opinion. On a quote, a proposal or an incumbent provider's advice.
- Project oversight. Someone on your side watching an implementation.
- Interim IT management. Covering a gap without hiring.
- Due diligence. Assessing the technology in a business being acquired.
Independence Is the Product
- No resale margin. A consultant who also sells the solution is quoting on two things.
- Ask about referral fees. Directly, and in writing.
- Scope defined in advance. A deliverable, not an open-ended engagement.
- Written findings. Something you still have after the consultant leaves.
- Your terminology. A report your board can read beats one only IT can.
- A handover. The plan should be executable by someone else.
IT Consulting Prices
Ballpark figures so you can check a quotation.
| Item | Ballpark price |
|---|---|
| Consultant day rate | R6,500 - R18,000 |
| IT audit and report, small business | R25,000 - R85,000 |
| IT strategy and three year budget | R45,000 - R180,000 |
| System selection and vendor comparison | R35,000 - R150,000 |
| Second opinion on a proposal | R8,500 - R35,000 |
| Project oversight, per month | R18,000 - R65,000 |
| Interim IT management, per month | R35,000 - R120,000 |
Prices JUST UPDATED. Ballpark figures, rounded, excluding VAT. They reflect typical South African IT support and technology rates. They are not our prices or quotations, and no provider is bound by them. Confirm what each quotation includes, such as how many users or devices are covered, the response times, after-hours cover and licence fees.
Get a scoped fee for your own project rather than a range.
Get the Best QuoteWhat Affects the Price
- The consultant's experience. The main driver of a day rate.
- How long the work runs. Longer engagements usually carry a lower daily figure.
- How complex the environment is. Several sites and systems take longer to understand.
- What has to be produced. A verbal opinion is not a documented strategy.
- Whether people must be interviewed. Stakeholder time is a large part of any audit.
- Travel. Site visits across provinces are billed.
- Whether they will also implement. It changes both the price and the independence.
What to Include in Your Request
- The decision you are facing. The specific one, not a general wish to improve IT.
- What prompted it. A failure, a renewal, a merger, a board question or growth.
- The size of the organisation. Staff, sites and roughly what IT costs you now.
- What you already know. Existing reports, quotes and proposals.
- Who has to be convinced. It shapes what the output needs to look like.
- Your timeline. And any deadline the decision sits against.
Before You Appoint a Consultant
- Ask what you receive at the end. A written deliverable, named and dated in the scope.
- Ask about commercial relationships. With the vendors they are likely to recommend.
- Agree the scope and the cap. Day rate work without a cap has a habit of expanding.
- Ask for comparable work. References from organisations of your size.
- Ask who actually does the work. The person you met, or someone more junior.
- Agree who owns the output. You should be free to give the report to another provider.
IT Consulting FAQs
When is a consultant worth it rather than asking our IT provider?
When the question is about the provider, when the decision is large enough that being wrong is expensive, or when you need something to put in front of a board. Your provider is the right first call for anything they would not also be quoting on.
What does an IT audit cover?
Typically the inventory, the network, security posture, backup, licensing, contracts, costs and risks, with a prioritised list of what to address. The useful part is the prioritisation: most businesses already suspect the problems and need help deciding the order.
How long does an audit take?
For a small business, a few days of work spread over two to three weeks, most of it waiting on access and interviews. For a multi-site organisation, four to eight weeks. A report produced in two days has not looked at much.
Can the consultant also implement the recommendations?
They can, and it is worth being clear about it up front. A consultant who expects the implementation work has an interest in the size of the recommendation. Either agree they are advisory only, or accept the position knowingly and get a second quote on the implementation.
What should an IT strategy actually contain?
Where you are, where you need to be, what it costs, in what order, and what happens if you do nothing. Numbers against years. A strategy without a budget is a wish list, and a budget without priorities is a shopping list.
Is this worth it for a small business?
For a routine year, no. For a decision like replacing a core system, moving to the cloud, changing provider or being acquired, a few days of independent advice is cheap against the cost of getting it wrong.
Consulting is offered by several of the providers on IT Support South Africa and is worth buying separately where the advice must be independent.
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