IT Evaluation's founder and principal consultant is Martin Tate. His personal experience, qualifications, impartiality and reputation are introduced below, and you can download his CV.

However, clients also rely heavily on us for other service providers. We have therefore taken the time to build a network of IT suppliers, such as providers of hardware, cabling, software packages, bespoke programs and web design. We can also support projects with niche project managers, graphic designers, HR and marketing advisors, trainers, change consultants, cost management specialists, industrial designers or even investors. Many specialists are independent and do not advertise. We sometimes subcontract these providers to furnish the client with one invoice and contact point. More often, we refer clients to the recommended providers on a goodwill basis (without referral fee) and they can form a direct relationship that is independent of IT Evaluation.

Experience demonstrates that our expertise reflects on the client's credibility as a serious potential purchaser. Many large vendors, who would not have treated you as a good prospect had you approached them direct, will respond to your enquiry because we represent you.

• Martin advises senior management in major organisations on IT-led change. He is a pivotal figure on large, high-risk IT projects, usually as lead or sole consultant.

• As a consultant, he has personally run 37 ICT selections, interviewed almost 550 users, appraised nearly 750 systems and shaped over £9m worth of spending. These procurement projects are in addition to more general IT consultancy assignments such as systems strategies and value reviews, IT management process improvements, feasibility studies, specifications, implementation support and project management.

• During IT system procurement projects, Martin twice negotiated a system discount four times his fee. On one occasion the capital cost reduction was eleven times the fee.

• On one project, the runner-up vendor offered to give the client the system - worth nearly £250K - and charge only for services. The client declined, because the evaluation process had clearly demonstrated its inferiority.

• On two projects, the client engaged Martin to select a new system, but he established that their needs could be met with existing facilities - and convinced them to dismiss him.

• A marketing consultant conducted a customer follow-up survey at the end of a project, including a standard question about value for money. The client replied that VFM was irrelevant, because they "simply could not have done the project without Martin". He ran the project to an aggressive timescale, and his success enabled the organisation to keep their trading license.

• On two projects, the winner was the better fit, but also less than one-tenth the cost of the runner-up.

• Following up on a 1991 project, Martin found the client had recently made a pan-European commitment to a different manufacturing system. The UK management were unconvinced, however, as it was clearly less capable than the system we had selected 13 years before.

• An FMCG director sponsored a telephony project and was surprised when, 18 months after installation, the 'new' system met needs that he was only just discovering. The supplier discovered that the sponsor had trusted Martin enough to sign off the entire specification without ever reading it.

• The client FD sent Martin to meet - unaccompanied - a prospective IT manager for a combined briefing and job interview. Martin could have 'put off' the manager in order to extend his own consultancy assignment, but he did not, and the FD knew that he would not. Martin endorsed the candidate and, twelve years later, she is pan-European IT director.

• A client engaged Martin to reactivate a project that had lost momentum. He recommended a radical change of approach within two days, which continued to deliver progress and benefit, and which did not rely on Martin's further involvement.

• Twice when business owners have experienced cash flow problems, they have settled their accounts with personal cheques rather than lose Martin's services.

A Fellow of the British Computer Society (FBCS) and Chartered IT Professional (CITP)
The BCS admit fellows only after satisfactory references and proof of "eminence or authority" in a field. Martin's field was IT Systems Selection.

Honorary Teaching Fellow at LUMS
Lancaster University Management School, a graduate-only business school with top ratings from funding bodies.

More Information on Experience
See Resources page for formal, chronological CVs with experience, employment history and client assignments.