Philosophy

I'm a creative problem solver — which really just means: what can we do with the tools we already have, before we go and buy something new?

Use what you have first

Do you already have Microsoft 365 or Google Apps? If so, let's start there. You're already paying for them, they cover a surprising amount of ground, and every extra tool is one more thing to manage, secure, and pay for.

Keep it simple. If a tool already works for you, stick with it. I won't push you toward a fancier platform when a straightforward approach will do the job just as well.

Case study: Microsoft 365

For fifteen years I was a Google Apps advocate. Then I worked at a business running Microsoft 365, and my view shifted. Like any platform, it's a set of tradeoffs — some things it does brilliantly, others less so. That's exactly where I come in: finding the creative combination that makes the best use of what you already have.

M365 offers far more than email and Teams. Under the hood, most subscriptions already include Power Automate, Power Apps, Power BI, SharePoint Online, Microsoft Forms, and Planner & Project — enough to build custom apps and internal tools that you'd otherwise pay an agency a large upfront fee (and an ongoing maintenance bill) to build from scratch. For a lot of small businesses, that's a long way to go before you need anything custom-coded.

It isn't risk-free, though:

• Vendor lock-in — once you build inside M365, migrating away later can be difficult.
• Complexity — the advanced features can overwhelm a team without proper training and governance.
• Security — sensitive data in the cloud needs proper controls and compliance checks.
• Cost creep — subscription fees add up quickly once you start adding Power Platform licences.

There's also a change-management risk. Traditional software is usually built across separate development, testing, and production environments, so nothing untested reaches the system that has to be right. With M365 tools it's tempting to build straight in production. I bring that same development-and-testing discipline to M365 and Google Apps work, so you know exactly what a change is going to do before it reaches your live systems.

Get creative with what you already have

This is something I picked up running my own business. What's already on the premises that could solve this problem, safely? Can I build my own workbench? Can a shelf move somewhere more useful? Where are these tools actually used most, and should there be a pair of scissors on every bench instead of one shared pair?

I'm good at this — balancing safety, efficiency, and cost, and noticing the low-cost fix that's already sitting in the room.

Add on extra things only if you need them

It's easy to end up with a hundred subscriptions, each doing one small thing. Before adding another one, it's worth asking:

• Do the tools you already use actually work together?
• How do you back up the data if the tool ever locked you out?
• What happens if the company behind it goes under?

Third-party tools are absolutely worth using when they genuinely do what you need — just go in with a backup plan, and weigh the ongoing cost against what it's actually saving or earning you, and whether you could take your data elsewhere if you ever needed to.