IT & Digital Services Review

Municipal technology is one of the largest areas of ongoing organizational spending, and one of the least frequently reviewed with genuine independence. Systems accumulate. Licences renew automatically. Projects are approved without a clear picture of what the organization already owns. And in many municipalities, the people best positioned to assess the technology function are the same people responsible for delivering it.

An independent IT and digital services review answers the questions senior leadership and Council actually need answered: Are we spending the right amount? Are we getting value? Are we exposed anywhere? And are we ready for what's coming next?

Why We're Different

Most consultants reviewing municipal IT come from a general management or audit background. Guillermo's background is different.

Before serving as Chief Administrative Officer he spent years leading municipal technology directly as: Manager of Business Applications, Manager of Business Applications and ERP Systems, and Director of Legislative Services, IT & Communications for the City of Nanaimo, where he was responsible for over 130 city-wide business applications, enterprise resource planning systems, and a multi-million dollar operating budget. He was later nationally recognized by the Institute of Public Administration in Canada for implementing an eTown Hall program that modernized citizen engagement.

That means a review from us isn't a checklist exercise. It's an assessment from someone who has been accountable for uptime, disaster recovery, ERP implementations, procurement decisions and staff adoption in a real municipal environment, and who later sat in the CAO's chair, deciding whether those investments were worth it.

What We Review

• Systems & Applications: what the organization owns, what it actually uses, where systems overlap, and where gaps exist
• Technology Spending: licensing, maintenance, contracts and renewals, assessed against the value genuinely delivered
• Service Delivery & Support: how well the IT function serves the rest of the organization, and where staff frustration is costing productivity
• Resilience & Continuity: backup, disaster recovery and business continuity readiness, in plain language for Council and senior leadership
• Governance & Decision-Making: how technology decisions get made, prioritized and funded, and whether that process is working
• Staffing & Capacity: whether the IT function is appropriately resourced and structured for the organization it supports
• AI & Modernization Readiness: whether the organization's data, systems and processes are positioned to take advantage of AI and automation, or whether foundational work is needed first

Plain-Language Reporting

One of the most common problems with technology reviews is that the resulting report is written for technologists, not for the Council and senior leaders who must act on it.

We write for both audiences. Our reports explain what we found, what it means for the organization, what it will cost to address, and what happens if it isn't addressed, in language a Council can understand and act on confidently, with the technical detail available for staff who need it.

Where This Leads

An IT and digital services review is frequently the starting point for broader modernization. Once an organization has a clear, honest picture of what it has and how well it's working, the path forward, whether that's AI implementation, system consolidation, process redesign or a targeted investment, becomes far easier to plan, budget and defend to Council.

Our Process

• Understand the organization, its service delivery model and its current technology environment
• Inventory systems, applications, contracts and spending
• Interview staff across departments, not just IT, to understand real service experience
• Assess resilience, governance, capacity and modernization readiness
• Identify practical opportunities, risks and priorities
• Deliver clear, plain-language findings with phased, costed recommendations
• Support implementation planning where requested

Why Ferrero Forward?

We've run municipal IT. We've implemented the systems. We've made the procurement decisions and lived with the consequences. And we've sat at the CAO's desk deciding whether the technology investment in front of us was worth making. That combination, hands-on technical leadership plus executive accountability, is what makes this review genuinely useful rather than merely thorough.