THE LEDGER
MKM-R-2026-014New edition: The State of Mid-Market Transformation 2026
01 / 04
MARKHAMConsultation
CapabilitiesCapability 04

Technology

Technology strategy, selection and delivery assurance in service of the operating model. Requirements come off the blueprint, contracts are written against outcomes and exit, and we stay on the programme until the cutover holds, which is usually well past the point where a strategy firm would have handed over.

Practice reference MKM-C-04Established 2022Led at partner levelGoverned by MKM-F-005
01 — Problems we solve

When the platform decision is bigger than the platform.

a

An ERP or core-platform decision is approaching, and the last one is still remembered for what it cost.

b

The systems landscape has accumulated by acquisition and exception; nobody owns the map.

c

A vendor programme is in flight and drifting. Scope is growing, the cutover is slipping, and accountability is diffusing somewhere between the integrator and the business.

d

Technology spend keeps rising while the operating decisions it should serve keep waiting.

02 — Deliverables
Technology strategy on a page

We draw the landscape, the target and the sequence from the operating model. The vendor roadmap is an input to that. It is not the source of it.

Selection & contract architecture

Requirements from the blueprint, evaluation against evidence, contracts written against outcomes and exit. Exit terms are drafted first.

Delivery assurance

Independent oversight of the integrator through cutover. Where systems have to be built, HolisticAutomation is the delivery partner, and we do not build them ourselves.

Cutover verification

Go-live held to the same standard as any outcome: baselined, tested, verified.

03 — Process
Wk 1–4
Blueprint

The enterprise on one page. Requirements come from here, not from workshops with wish lists.

Wk 5–10
Select

The short list is tested against evidence and against reference operations that actually run the thing. Commercial and exit terms are negotiated before preference hardens — after that the client is bargaining from a position it has already given away, and every integrator in the room knows it.

Wk 11+
Assure

Independent oversight of delivery: scope, sequence and readiness reviewed weekly against the baseline.

Cutover
Verify

Go or no-go against written readiness criteria. Outcomes are verified after stabilisation.

04 — Evidence & standards

How we stay independent while the work gets built.

Standards appliedSelection is scoped against the Enterprise Blueprint (MKM-F-005). Delivery is assured under the Verification Standard (MKM-F-003).
Outcome evidenceZero days of unplanned downtime at cutover in the most recent ERP re-platforming, verified at month 14. That is one cutover. A clean go-live is part preparation and part the absence of bad luck. Saying so costs us something in a pitch. Claiming to have engineered the luck out of a cutover would cost the client more.
ReferencesReferences for this practice are available on request, subject to clearance.
IndependenceMarkham holds no vendor alliances and takes no referral fees. Where systems are built, our group partner HolisticAutomation is contracted separately and overseen identically. A client who wants a single throat to choke should not hire us for this. Where the integrator and the assurer are the same firm, the assurance is worth whatever the integrator says it is worth, and the client discovers the difference at cutover rather than before it.