You need a digital department, not a digital headcount
The business has reached the size where digital isn't optional any more. There's a website that matters, systems that hold real data, analytics somebody should be reading, a domain and email setup nobody documented, and a queue of small improvements that never quite reach the top of anyone's list.
The obvious answer is to hire someone. But a good generalist who can do design, build, search, systems and infrastructure costs a real salary plus the cost of managing them, and the honest truth is you don't have a full week of work for them, you have about a day and a half, unpredictably distributed.
So it goes to whoever has capacity, which means it goes badly, or it goes to three different suppliers who each blame the other two when something breaks.
What you
actually get
Every line below is a deliverable, not an intention. If it's on this list it's in the proposal, and if it's not on this list it isn't included.
Twelve hours a month, across any discipline
Website changes, systems work, search, email, analytics, infrastructure. You don't have to decide upfront which bucket the hours come from, that's the entire point.
The full infrastructure layer, managed
Domain, hosting, SSL, DNS, email and backups. Provisioned, monitored, patched and documented. You never receive a renewal email you don't understand again.
Same-day turnaround on small changes
One message, shipped that day. The reason most sites go stale isn't laziness, it's that asking for a change is a whole production.
Systems and dashboard maintenance
If I built you a database back-end or dashboards, they're kept current here rather than on a separate invoice.
A quarterly roadmap session
Ninety minutes on what's coming, what's not working and what's worth doing next. This is the part that makes it a department rather than a support contract.
A defined response SLA
Written down, with what it covers and what it doesn't. I'd rather commit to something specific than promise 'fast'.
Vendor management on your behalf
When the host, the registrar or a platform is the problem, I deal with them. You get told what happened and when it's fixed.
How it runs
So you know what's happening and when, and so nobody has to ask for a status update.
Takeover audit
Everything inventoried, domains, hosting, DNS, accounts, systems, renewals. You get the document even if you later leave.
Consolidate and secure
Access tidied, backups configured and restore-tested, monitoring live, undocumented things documented.
Baseline
Performance, search and analytics benchmarked so improvement is measurable rather than asserted.
First roadmap session
We agree the first quarter's priorities and the hours start going somewhere deliberate.
The rhythm
Changes ship as they come. A monthly summary in plain English. A quarterly roadmap session.
What I need from you
The projects that run late almost always run late for one of these reasons, so they're worth reading properly before we start.
- Administrative access to domains, hosting and the relevant accounts, or the authority to obtain it
- One internal point of contact who can approve work
- Notice of anything commercially significant coming (a launch, a rebrand, a campaign) so capacity is there
- Willingness to consolidate, this works far better when the sprawl gets tidied rather than preserved
What's not included
On the public page rather than buried in the proposal, so there's no argument in week five.
- Large projects, quoted separately, but retainer clients get priority slots
- Ad spend or licence fees
- Unlimited hours
What happens if you don't do this
Hire someone. The right answer once there's genuinely a full week of work, and I'll tell you when I think you've crossed that line. Below it, you're paying a salary for idle capacity and carrying the management overhead yourself.
Use three suppliers. A host, a web person and a marketing agency. Cheaper on paper. In practice you become the integration layer between them, and the failure mode is that everything is always slightly somebody else's fault.
Take a smaller tier. If what you actually need is "keep it running and make the occasional change", Actively Managed at R7,500 does that without the roadmap layer. Most clients start there and move up when the small requests stop being small.
Straight
answers
Isn't this just an expensive hosting package?
Do unused hours roll over?
What if we need more than twelve hours in a month?
Can you work with our existing developers or agency?
What happens if we leave?
Is this actually cheaper than hiring?
Sound like
your problem?
One call, no deck. If this isn't the right package I'll tell you which is.