Service · IT advisory and audit

Digital strategy

Suppose an automotive supplier near Steyr employs sixty people. Sales would like a B2B portal for spare parts, the stock and order system is twenty years old and about to lose vendor maintenance, a major customer is demanding evidence of information security, and the managing director wonders what artificial intelligence might do for quoting. Each of these topics comes from a different corner, each has its own champion, and all of them compete for the same money and the same people. A digital strategy puts them into a reasoned sequence: what happens this year, what waits until next year and what is deliberately dropped. The result is not a glossy brochure but a working document with figures, named owners and points at which the plan is reviewed.

Send an enquiry Inclusions overview

By video call

interviews and workshops without travel

1 to 3 years

planning horizon

Budget per phase

with decision gates

Written for directors

not for the IT department

Everything this covers

We begin with the business model rather than the technology: how the company earns money, where it wants to go and what currently stands in the way. Tools are chosen only once it is clear which problem they must solve.

Settle the details with an engineer

Turning goals into requirements

Selling spare parts online becomes a concrete list: customer-specific pricing, stock availability from the ERP, shipping, invoice format. Only then does the true cost of a project become visible.

Processes, not programs

We trace three or four core workflows from quotation to payment and mark every point where data is retyped, printed out or captured twice.

System map

Which applications exist, who looks after them, how they connect and which are nearing end of life. It fits on a single page that non-technical readers can follow.

Regulatory horizon

GDPR, e-invoicing with ebInterface and PEPPOL, NIS2 and its Austrian implementation, the EU AI Act including staff AI literacy, and accessibility rules for online shops. We show what applies to you and schedule it in, without scaremongering.

Costs that quietly keep running

Licences, maintenance contracts, cloud subscriptions and contractor hours, set against what they actually deliver.

Funding on the radar

Schemes such as KMU.DIGITAL, programmes from the Austrian federal development bank aws, or grants from your federal state may support individual projects. We point out where one might fit. Apply is not a listed consultancy, does not file applications and cannot promise approval.

Roadmap with exit points

A document covering one to three years, divided into phases with budgets, owners and clear moments at which you decide whether and how to continue.

Our working method

The duration depends on company size and the number of departments involved and is estimated in advance. Every session takes place on Teams or Google Meet.

Kick-off with management

Objectives, time horizon, budget room and the question of how you will know, two years from now, that the effort paid off.

Interviews and process mapping

Conversations with each department head, a remote review of systems and a register of all contracts and licences.

Options and assessment

For every initiative, one or two routes with benefit, cost, risk and dependencies, so the order is argued rather than guessed.

Roadmap and strategy session

Presentation, discussion, revisions. If you wish, we facilitate a half-day online workshop in which the management team commits to the sequence.

In many roadmaps the most expensive item is not software but your own people's time. A new ERP needs months of input from purchasing, the warehouse and accounts, all alongside their daily work. Leave that out of the plan and you get a project that is funded on paper and stalled in practice. So our roadmap lists the internal hours for each phase as well, not just the invoices from outside suppliers.

Frequently asked questions

Not a thick binder, but the same answers: what, in what order, at what price. At that size the topics are usually choosing accounting or stock software, tidying up Microsoft 365 and working out what an online shop would really cost. The document simply runs to ten pages instead of forty.

The heads of each department and whoever signs off the budget. A plan drawn up with IT alone may be technically sound and still miss the business entirely.

Only by way of pointers. Apply is not listed as a consultancy in any funding programme, does not submit applications and cannot promise that funding will be granted. Current conditions are published by the Austrian Economic Chamber (WKO), by aws or by your federal state's funding agency. A finished roadmap does, however, make it easier to explain there exactly what you intend to do.

We record them anyway, including cases where the real obstacle is organisational and no program would cure it. Hearing that is unpleasant, yet it stops you buying tools that leave the underlying issue untouched.

No. The document is yours and can be carried out by your current provider, your own staff or by us. Cost estimates are based on market prices, not on our rates. Our own work is billed at €110 per hour plus VAT following an upfront estimate.

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Ask for an IT roadmap

Tell us what concerns you most: cost, the pace of change or risk. You will receive a proposed approach and a realistic timeframe.

Email
office@apply.at

Availability
Monday to Friday, 8:00-17:00 Austrian time (CET/CEST), reply within one working day

Meetings
By video on Microsoft Teams or Google Meet

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