Business IT Consulting
Northern Beaches
Planning for growth? Moving to the cloud? Not sure how to scale securely? Marvel IT works with Northern Beaches businesses to make smarter IT decisions with confidence. We help you build 12–24 month IT roadmaps, plan secure Microsoft 365 rollouts, modernise old systems, strengthen your cybersecurity posture, and bring your costs under control. In short, if it has to do with IT, we’ve got you covered.
Honest and trustworthy IT consulting on the Northern Beaches.
If you’re looking for the most honest and trustworthy IT consulting the Northern Beaches has, then look no further than us. We’ve been helping local businesses make sense of their IT since 2008, and over that time we’ve found that most IT problems aren’t really IT problems at all. More often than not, they come from decisions made years ago, under pressure, with too little information. A good consult sorts that out. You get a clear picture of where you are, a plan for where you’re going, and someone you can ring to talk it through.
IT roadmaps & strategy
We sit down with you and put together a 12–24 month plan for your IT that actually lines up with where your business is heading. Hiring, new locations, busy seasons, revenue targets, the plan factors in all of it. You walk away with something written down and prioritised, instead of a vague feeling that you should probably "look at the cloud" one of these days.
Talk to us about a roadmapMicrosoft 365 & cloud planning
Moving to the cloud is one of those things that’s straightforward when it’s done well and a nightmare when it isn’t. We help you plan it properly, the right licences for your team, MFA and security in place from day one, mailboxes and files moved across without any of the usual surprises. And we’ll set up Teams, SharePoint and OneDrive so your staff actually use them.
See our Microsoft 365 supportCybersecurity posture & uplift
Cybersecurity for a small or medium business doesn’t have to mean a 60-page policy document and enterprise tools you’ll never use. We have a look at where you sit today, work out the gaps, and put together a practical uplift plan sized to your business. MFA, identity, backups, endpoint, staff training, the stuff that actually matters, in the right order.
See our cybersecurity serviceMost businesses aren’t spending too little on IT. They’re spending in the wrong places.
Over the years we’ve found that most Northern Beaches businesses aren’t actually under-spending on their IT. The trouble is the money tends to end up in the wrong spots, software nobody uses, licences nobody owns, old systems holding up the next hire. A proper consult finds the spend that isn’t earning its keep, and puts it back into the parts of your business that need it. The result: better IT for the same money. Sometimes less.
Licences and seats nobody owns
Old user seats still being billed after staff have left. Add-ons nobody asked for. Two products doing more or less the same job. When we go through it line by line with you, there’s almost always a bit of monthly spend we can trim back without anyone in the office noticing, except your bookkeeper.
The bits everyone’s learnt to work around
The shared drive everyone tip-toes around. The server in the cupboard nobody really wants to touch. The "temporary" workaround from a few years ago that’s still hanging on. On their own each one feels small, but when you try to grow the business around them, they’re the thing slowing the whole team down.
An honest look at where you are
The first conversation with us costs you nothing and there’s no pressure attached. We’ll have an honest look at what you’ve got, tell you what’s working, point out what isn’t, and let you know roughly what we’d do first. If you’d rather use that information with your existing IT provider, that’s completely fine by us.
How we moved a client from break-fix to a proactive MSP
Their actual monthly spend was about 30% less than what they were previously spending on break fix.
We had a client come to us upset with his current IT support company cause they were so reactive and they were getting sent massive bills for jobs done. Often they were redoing the same job over and over and not providing an actual solution to the issue as well.
We decided along with them that we would be able to take them on, standardise their environment and put them under a full service agreement to get rid of the pain of bill shock and reactive IT support.
After three months, the client came to us to tell us how happy he was and that not only were his problems all sorted, the support needed had gone down dramatically.
Not only did they save money, the support offering covered a whole suite of monitoring and security services too. Bang for buck, proactive IT support has proven time and time again to save a business’s bottom line financially and also increase the productivity of their staff.
From "we should sort our IT out" to a plan you can budget against.
We keep our consulting process pretty simple. We listen first, have a proper look at what you’ve already got, and turn that into a written roadmap with clear priorities, costs and timing. After that, if you’d like us to help you carry the work out, we can, or you can take the plan elsewhere. Either way, you end up with something useful.
Discovery
We start by listening. What does your business actually do, where are you heading, what’s been frustrating you, and what’s working well. Your IT decisions come out of that conversation, not the other way around. Most of the time the answers are already inside your business, we just need to draw them out.
Audit
Next, we take stock of what you’ve already got. Apps, licences, devices, user accounts, network, backups, your current security setup, the whole picture. Nothing fancy, just a clear and honest inventory so we both know what we’re starting from before we start making any decisions.
Roadmap
Then we put a 12–24 month roadmap in front of you, all in plain English. Quick wins first, the bigger pieces scheduled around your business calendar, and the boring-but-important stuff like backups and licensing in there too. You’ll know what’s happening when, and roughly what each piece costs.
Recommendations
For each piece of the plan we tell you what we’d choose and why, where the trade-offs are, and where we’d push back. No mumbo jumbo talk and no hidden agenda. The recommendations are yours to keep, if you’d rather take the plan to your existing IT provider, you can.
Implementation
If you’d like us to carry the work out, we can do that too. Microsoft 365 rollouts, security uplift, network refreshes, moving you off old servers, all the things that turn the roadmap into reality. We can pair the project with one of our Care Packs so there’s flat-rate support afterwards, with no bill shock.
Review
Things change, new hires, a new office, a new product, new compliance requirements, so we sit down with you every quarter to revisit the roadmap. That way it stays a useful working document instead of a PDF buried in someone’s email from 18 months ago.
Local advice for Northern Beaches businesses, from Manly to Palm Beach.
Whether you’re a busy professional services firm in Brookvale, a growing practice in Dee Why, a creative studio in Manly, or a family business in Avalon, we shape our consulting around how you work. Marvel IT is a strong fit for solo operators as well as larger businesses with 10 to 50+ users. We speak plainly, act fast, and build long-term relationships based on trust, not contracts.
Planning for growth
New hires, a new office, a new product, a busy season ahead, we make sure the IT underneath scales with you, rather than becoming the bottleneck your team learns to work around.
Moving to the cloud
Microsoft 365, SharePoint, cloud servers, modern user accounts. Done in the right order, with security in place first, so moving to the cloud actually feels like an upgrade rather than a new headache.
Scaling securely
Cybersecurity sized to the business you actually are. MFA, user accounts, backups, staff training, endpoint protection, the sensible controls in the right places, all in plain English.
The questions we get most.
A few of the questions Northern Beaches business owners tend to ask us before they pick up the phone. If yours isn’t here, give us a call and we’ll give you a straight answer.
Do you only consult, or can you actually do the work afterwards?
Both. A lot of consultancies hand you a nicely-bound report and disappear, and we don’t think that’s particularly useful. If you’d like us to carry the work out, we can do that through our project teams or one of our Care Packs. And if you’d rather take the roadmap to your existing IT provider, that’s completely fine, the recommendations don’t change either way.
Are you tied to particular vendors or products?
No, not at all. We work with Microsoft, Google, the major security vendors and a number of smaller specialists, and we’ll recommend what actually fits your business. If a cheaper or free tool is the right call, that’s what we’ll say. We’ve been doing this since 2008 and the reason customers stay with us is because the advice is honest.
How is consulting different from one of your Care Packs?
A Care Pack is our flat-rate managed IT plan, ongoing day-to-day support, monitoring, maintenance and the helpdesk your team rings when something’s not working. Consulting is more strategic, looking at the next 12–24 months and deciding what to invest in, what to retire and what to migrate. A lot of our customers do both: a Care Pack for the day job, and a consult once or twice a year to keep the plan honest.
How long does a typical engagement take?
For a roadmap-only engagement, it’s usually 2–4 weeks from our first proper sit-down to a delivered plan, depending on the size of the business and how much documentation you’ve already got. Smaller targeted consults, a Microsoft 365 question, a security review, a second opinion on a quote, can often be done in a few days. We’ll always tell you up front how long we think it’ll take.
Do you charge by the hour, or on a fixed price?
Almost always fixed price for the consult itself, so there’s no clock-watching and no bill shock at the end of the month. Implementation work is either fixed-price by project, or rolled into your monthly Care Pack, either way it’s agreed up front, in writing, before anything starts. No lock-in contracts, and you can move month-to-month with us.
The six conversations that shape your next two years of IT.
These are the six areas most of our consulting work ends up centred on. Pick whichever one is bothering you the most and start there, everything else tends to fall into place once you’ve got that piece sorted.
IT roadmaps & strategy
A 12–24 month plan for your IT, written in plain English, lined up with your business plan rather than someone’s wish list. We sequence the quick wins, schedule the bigger pieces around your year, and make sure the boring-but-important things like backups and licensing don’t fall off the page. You walk away with something you can show your accountant and budget against.
Talk to us about a roadmapMicrosoft 365 rollouts
Microsoft 365 is one of those things that’s straightforward when it’s set up well and a complete pain when it isn’t. We plan the rollout end-to-end with you, the right licences for your team, MFA in place from day one, mailboxes and files moved across without surprises. And we set up Teams, SharePoint and OneDrive so they’re actually useful, not a second filing mess on top of the first one.
See our Microsoft 365 supportModernising legacy systems
The server tucked away in the cupboard. The shared drive nobody quite trusts. That one program that only seems to run on the old computer in the corner. We have a proper look at what’s still earning its keep, what needs replacing, and what can be retired entirely, then we map out the changeover so the business doesn’t have to take a hit while it’s happening.
Talk to us about modernisingCybersecurity posture & uplift
We have a look at where your business currently sits across the controls that actually matter, user accounts, MFA, backups, endpoint protection, staff training, what happens if something goes wrong, and put together an uplift plan that’s sized to your real risk. Practical and proportional, with no fear-selling and no 60-page policy document that nobody’s going to read.
See our cybersecurity serviceControlling costs & reducing waste
When we audit a business, more often than not there’s a meaningful chunk of monthly IT spend going to seats nobody uses, add-ons nobody asked for, or two products doing the same job. We find it, we trim it, and we put that money back into the parts of your stack that are genuinely under-served. No fanfare, just a smaller invoice next month and a better IT setup.
Ask us about a licence auditOngoing review & advisory
Businesses change. New hires, a new office, a new product, new compliance requirements, so we sit down with you every quarter and revisit the plan. It gets re-sequenced and re-costed as needed, so it stays a useful working document. You always know what’s coming next in your IT, why, and roughly what it’ll cost.
See our Care PacksThe rest of what we do.
A roadmap is only useful if the day-to-day underneath it actually works. Once the plan is set, these are the services we run that turn it into reality. Most of our consulting customers end up using one or two of them, but you’re never obliged to.
Looking for the most honest IT support on the Northern Beaches?
Tell us a bit about your business and we’ll come back with a plan, usually within one business day. No pressure, no jargon.
- 0413 692 829
- Northern Beaches · Sydney-wide & remote support Australia-wide
- Mon–Fri · 8:30am–5:30pm