IT consulting · New Jersey
A straight answer about what you already have.
Matano IT Solutions gives New Jersey businesses an independent reading of their technology: what is there, what the risk is, and what it would take to put right. It arrives in writing, in plain English, and it is yours to act on with whoever you like. We take no commission on anything we recommend, which is the only thing that makes the advice worth reading.
Why independence matters here
Most IT advice is a quote wearing a report's clothes.
The usual arrangement is that whoever assesses you also sells you the fix, and often earns a margin on the product they name. That does not make them dishonest. It makes the report impossible to check.
- We take no commissionWe do not earn a referral fee or a margin on hardware and software we recommend. If we suggest a product, it is because it fits, and you are free to buy it wherever you like.
- We will tell you to do nothingSometimes the honest answer is that your setup is adequate and the money is better spent elsewhere in the business. That answer is worth paying for too, and it is one a firm selling the replacement will rarely give you.
- We will tell you when it is not usSome problems need a specialist, and some need a bigger firm than ours. Saying so costs us a project and keeps the relationship, which is the better trade.
- You keep the workThe assessment and the roadmap are written for you, not as a sales document. If you take them to another provider to implement, that is a legitimate outcome and the documents are built to survive it.
- Scoped and quoted flatYou know what the assessment costs before it starts. Consulting billed by the hour rewards the wrong thing.
What gets looked at
The things that actually cost businesses money.
Not an inventory for its own sake. These are the areas where what we find tends to change a decision.
Email and identity
Who can send as your domain, whether a forgery would be stopped, how accounts are protected, and what happens to access when somebody leaves.
Backup and recovery
What is backed up, what is not, and whether anybody has ever restored from it. The answer to the third question is usually no.
What you are paying for
Licenses nobody uses, overlapping tools, and contracts that renew quietly. This is the part that often pays for the assessment.
The single points of failure
The server in the closet, the one person who knows the password, the machine running something nobody supports any more.
Security baseline
What is enforced rather than available. Multi-factor authentication that is optional is a setting, not a control.
Whether a plan is worth it
Sometimes the answer is that you do not need a managed provider yet, and two fixed jobs would do. We would rather say that.
The work
Where an outside view helps.
Businesses rarely need advice on everything. They need it at specific moments, usually when a decision is expensive and hard to reverse.
Technology assessment
A structured look at what you have: systems, licenses, security posture, backups, contracts, and risk. You get a written picture of where you stand and what needs attention, ranked.
Technology roadmap
A plan across the next one to three years, sequenced and costed, so upgrades stop arriving as surprises and start being budgeted. It also gives you something to point at when someone asks why.
Second opinion on a quote
Someone has proposed a project and you are not sure whether it is right, well priced, or necessary. We read it and tell you, including when the answer is that it looks fine.
Vendor selection
Choosing between systems, or replacing one that has stopped fitting. We help you define what you actually need first, which is usually where these decisions go wrong.
Mergers, moves, and growth
Combining two companies' systems, opening a location, or scaling past what your setup was built for. The technology work is knowable in advance and much cheaper when it is.
Ongoing leadership
Where the need is continuous rather than one off, a fractional IT director is usually the better fit than repeated consulting engagements.
What we will not do
The limits, said out loud.
- We will not tell you what your insurance coversWe document the technical controls you have. Reading a policy is a question for whoever wrote it.
- We will not audit for a certification we do not holdIf you need a formal attestation against a named standard, you need an auditor, and we will say so.
- We will not pad a finding to sell a projectA short report is a good outcome. A long one written to justify a quote is the thing this page exists against.
Questions
What people ask before they engage.
What do I actually get?
A written reading of what you have, area by area, with what the risk is and what it would take to fix. Specific rather than graded: not a score out of ten, but "this system can send email as you and is in nobody's records, and here is what to do about it".
Do we have to hire you to do the fixes?
No, and a good number of these end with the work going to somebody else or to the provider you already have. The finding is yours. If you do want us to do it, projects are quoted flat before anything starts.
How is this different from a free audit?
A free audit is a sales visit, and the thing it finds tends to be the thing the visitor sells. This is scoped and paid for, which is what buys you the right to a finding that says "do nothing".
How long does it take?
It depends on the size of what you run, which is why it is scoped first: a 15-minute review, then a flat quote with the areas and the timeline written down before you decide.
Do you work with our existing IT provider?
Yes, and it is common. We coordinate with them rather than going around them, and an honest provider usually welcomes a second reading. If the finding reflects badly on them, that is a fact rather than a pitch.
Can you help us decide whether to hire someone internally?
Yes, and we will give you a straight answer even when it is that you should. There is a size at which an internal hire is better value than any outside firm, and pretending otherwise is not a service.
We just need someone to look at one quote.
That is a perfectly good engagement and a common one. It does not need to become a project.
Can I see the quality of the work first?
Put your domain into the check above. It reads your email authentication, your website and how you show up, in about fifteen seconds, and it is the same engine and the same plain wording a full assessment uses. No account, no card, and the report is yours to keep.
Scope it