A Real CTO For Two Days A Week.
A regional insurance carrier without senior IT leadership added Tier 4 advisory plus an embedded Tier 3 specialist. Getting the strategic depth and the hands-on capacity their internal team needed.
The Situation
What They
Were Up Against.
A regional insurance carrier with a competent internal IT team had no senior architect, no CIO, and no one to lead strategic technology decisions. Their managed service provider was good for Tier 1 and 2 but didn't have the experience to advise on platform decisions, M365 governance, or how to handle escalated incidents. The CEO didn't want to hire a full-time CIO yet but knew the team was stuck without one.
Why They Called Us
The Fit.
They needed senior advisory and execution capacity without a six-figure salaried hire. Tech Critic's blend of Tier 4 advisory (strategic) plus a placed Tier 3 specialist (hands-on) gave them effective senior IT leadership at a fraction of the headcount cost. And the option to grow into a full-time hire on their own schedule.
What We Did
The Work.
- Tier 4 advisory: a senior Tech Critic consultant on retainer for high-priority incident escalation, architecture decisions, and roadmap planning
- Embedded Tier 3 specialist on-site for six months supporting AD, Entra ID, M365, server, virtualization, and EDR escalations
- Quarterly strategic roadmap workshops with the CEO and internal IT lead to align technology investment with business priorities
- MSP coordination. We managed the relationship with the existing Tier 1/2 MSP, escalating ticket trends and pushing improvements without replacing the contract
- Hardware procurement guidance. Vendor-neutral specs and negotiation support saved the client 22% on their year-one refresh budget
- Knowledge transfer: every escalation became a documented runbook so the internal team grew capability over the engagement
The Outcome
Real
Numbers.
cut from year-one hardware spend
runbooks built and handed off
extension after the first term
- Major incident response time cut from 'days' to 'hours' once the Tier 3 specialist was embedded
- M365 governance framework drafted and implemented (sensitivity labels, conditional access, MFA enforcement)
- Internal IT team's incident-handling capability measurably improved through the runbook library
- Client ultimately hired the embedded Tier 3 specialist full-time at the end of the engagement
Tech Stack
What We Used.
We got CIO-level thinking without paying a CIO. And when our Tier 3 person was ready, we hired him out of Tech Critic with their blessing. That's a partnership.
Insurance · Anonymized Client
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