The Economics of Fractional Leadership
For a restaurant group with 15 to 50 sites, technology is a multi-million pound line item. Yet, strategy is often dictated by a well-meaning Operations Director who doesn't know how to negotiate API access limits.
The Salary Void
A full-time, experienced Chief Technology Officer with specific hospitality expertise commands upwards of £150,000 per year, plus equity and benefits. A group turning over £20M cannot easily justify that overhead, resulting in a dangerous strategic vacuum.
Fractional Impact Metrics
- Licence Consolidation: Our average engagement identifies 18% in redundant SaaS spend within the first 30 days.
- Vendor Negotiation: We know wholesale rates. We typically reduce new contract values by 12-20% simply by challenging bloated line items.
- Deployment Speed: Fractional oversight reduces major migration timelines by an average of 6 weeks.
What You Actually Pay For
A fractional CTO is not an IT support desk. You do not call us when a receipt printer jams. You bring us in to architect the data warehouse, oversee the RFP process for a new POS, and build the integration roadmap between your labour tool and your general ledger.
| Engagement Model | Best Suited For |
|---|---|
| Project-Based (Migration) | Groups undergoing a specific transition (e.g., Aloha to Toast) needing a 6-month intensive technical project manager. |
| Retained Advisory (1-2 days/mo) | Steady-state groups needing board-level technical strategy and vendor auditing without operational execution. |
| Interim CTO (3 days/wk) | Rapidly scaling groups preparing for an exit or private equity event, requiring deep structural overhaul. |
Frequently Asked Questions
- Who manages our day-to-day IT support?
- We help you hire and structure an internal IT Manager (or outsource to a managed service provider like Vista), while we retain the strategic oversight and vendor management.
- How quickly does a fractional CTO generate positive ROI?
- Immediately upon the first major contract renewal. By auditing your Microsoft 365, POS, and labour scheduling licences, we typically recover our retainer fee in direct savings within quarter one.