// Tech Consulting & Advisory

Senior-led infrastructure advisory for the decisions you can't reverse cheaply.

We partner with CIOs and infrastructure leaders at $100M+ enterprises on the decisions made once every five to seven years and live with for a decade. Multi-vendor strategy. TCO optimization. EOSL navigation. Refresh sequencing. Independent. Senior-led. Fee-based, never commissioned.

See engagement models
Independent — no software resold Senior-led — no junior pyramid Fee-based — no vendor commissions

// Why this practice exists

Three structural conflicts the typical infrastructure advisor cannot escape.

Most "infrastructure consulting" arrives with constraints the buyer doesn't see at the engagement letter. We exist to solve for the cases where those constraints would have changed the answer.

Conflict 1

The OEM-affiliated consultant

The advisor recommending your refresh path is paid by Dell, Cisco, HPE, or NetApp on the back end. Their incentive isn't bad architecture — but it isn't your architecture either. It's the architecture that closes the deal whose commission they're earning.

Conflict 2

The reseller wearing an advisor's hat

Resellers offer free assessments because the assessment is a vehicle to a hardware order. The deliverable looks like advice; the underlying economics are quota and margin. Useful for some decisions. Not for the ones that should constrain a reseller's selection.

Conflict 3

The Big Four "infrastructure practice"

Excellent for governance and process. Constrained on the technical specifics that determine whether a refresh actually delivers the modeled TCO. The team that writes the strategy memo is rarely the team that has touched a current-generation array on a Friday at 2 AM.

Conflict 4

The internal-only review

Your own team is closest to the data and furthest from the consequences. They know what works today; they're rarely positioned to model what works under a stack their CFO has only seen presented by a vendor. Independent eyes change which questions get asked.

// How we engage

Three engagement depths. One billing principle.

Every engagement is fee-based and scoped before it starts. We do not work on success fees. We do not work for vendor commissions. We do not introduce hardware orders into engagement deliverables.

Tier 1

Strategic Assessment

4 to 8 weeks

A specific decision is on your desk and the answer matters. Refresh-versus-extend. Consolidate-versus-status-quo. Hyperconverged-versus-traditional. We bring senior-level infrastructure judgment, build the model, and deliver a written memo plus an executive briefing.

Output
Written strategic memo + executive briefing
Use when
One decision, defined window
Fee
Fixed-price by scope

Tier 2

Quarterly Advisory Retainer

12 months minimum

You want a senior strategic partner on call. Quarterly architecture reviews. Pre-RFP scoping support. Vendor-side contract review before signature. On-call advisory for the questions that don't fit a project. The relationship is the deliverable.

Output
Quarterly reviews + on-call advisory
Use when
Continuous strategic partner needed
Fee
Quarterly retainer

Tier 3

Implementation Oversight

6 to 18 months

A major migration is in flight and your leadership wants independent eyes alongside the implementation team. We sit between the program and the executive sponsor: milestone validation, risk surfacing, vendor escalation support, honest status reporting.

Output
Independent milestone validation
Use when
High-stakes migration in progress
Fee
Time-and-materials or milestone

// Practice areas

Where the practice goes deepest.

Five domains where independent senior judgment changes the answer. We don't claim coverage outside these. The boundary is intentional.

01

OEM Strategy & Vendor Consolidation

Multi-vendor reduction analysis. Anniversary alignment. Master agreement architecture. Reverse-engineering OEM negotiation positions before you sit down at the table.

02

Infrastructure TCO Optimization

Three-to-five-year TCO modeling against the actual structure your CFO uses. Refresh-versus-extend. Buy-versus-lease. On-prem-versus-hybrid economics, costed in your spreadsheet, not ours.

03

EOSL & Risk Navigation

Inventory of end-of-service-life exposure across your estate. Transition planning. Parallel-running design. The risk inventory most teams haven't compiled because no one is paid to surface it.

04

Refresh Architecture

Hyperconverged versus traditional. On-prem versus hybrid. Capacity planning grounded in your actual workload mix, not a vendor's reference architecture deck.

05

Procurement Strategy

RFP design. Vendor scoring. Negotiation support. Reading what's missing from a vendor proposal as carefully as what's in it. Working with — never around — your procurement team.

// What independence actually means

Four operating principles. None is rhetorical.

Independence is structural, not a brand promise. The principles below are how we run the practice, costed into our fees, never bypassed.

No vendor commissions, ever

WUC's advisory practice does not earn commission on hardware, software, or service orders that result from advisory engagements. The wall between advisory revenue and product revenue is hard, audited, and disclosed in every engagement letter.

No software resold under advisory

We do not introduce, recommend, or quote software products as part of advisory deliverables where WUC holds reseller economics. If your decision needs software analysis, we name the products you should evaluate — not the products we'd be paid to place.

Senior-led, never junior-pyramided

The senior advisor signing the engagement letter is the senior advisor doing the work. We don't run a "partner sells, manager builds, analyst writes" pyramid. If a senior person is named on the proposal, they are on the engagement, present at the executive briefing, and accountable to the deliverable.

Walk-away clauses that mean it

If at any point during an engagement we determine WUC is not the right firm for the question — wrong domain, conflicted, or the situation has moved beyond our scope — we say so in writing and refund the unconsumed retainer. We've done it. It's not a story, it's a policy.

// How we think

The framework we bring to your hardest infrastructure decisions.

Most consulting firms have a methodology. Few have one specific to infrastructure with this much vendor depth. Below is what we actually use — and where we're honest about not going.

Decision framework

Where the decision sits on these two axes determines how we engage.

Long horizon (24mo+) Quick (6mo)

Long · Cheap to reverse

Scenario-plan, commit at decision points.

Multiple feasible paths. Decision points spaced. We map the scenario tree, model the exit ramps, commit only when forced. Tier 2 retainer fits well here.

Long · Expensive to reverse

Full TCO + EOSL window analysis.

Datacenter refresh. Multi-vendor consolidation. Hyperconverged migration. The hard ones. Three-to-five-year TCO modeled in your CFO's spreadsheet structure, EOSL windows costed, vendor-side leverage mapped. Tier 1 + Tier 3 oversight.

Quick · Cheap to reverse

Pilot first, decide after.

The decision is small enough that running it both ways teaches more than analyzing it. We design the pilot, scope the metrics, deliver the post-mortem — or refer you to your team if a consultant is overkill.

Quick · Expensive to reverse

Demand pre-mortem; budget the reversal.

Pressure to move fast on a decision that will be hard to undo. We force the pre-mortem most teams skip, and we write the reversal cost into the engagement letter so the decision is made with eyes open.

Cheap to reverse Expensive to reverse

Capability depth

Where we go deep — and where we don't.

Coverage breadth is rarely the differentiator. Coverage depth at the right things is. Bars below are calibrated honestly: full-depth on the practice anchors, working depth on adjacencies, and explicit refer-outs where we're not the right firm.

OEM Strategy & Vendor Consolidation
Practice anchor
Infrastructure TCO Optimization
Practice anchor
EOSL & Risk Navigation
Deep capability
Refresh Architecture (Storage / Compute / Network)
Strong capability
Procurement Strategy & RFP Support
Strong capability
Hyperconverged & Hybrid Cloud Migration
Working capability
Datacenter Power, Cooling & Site Strategy
Selective only
Cybersecurity Architecture
Refer out
Application Architecture & Software Strategy
Refer out

// Refer-out is not weakness. It's how a discipline stays one. We name partner firms in adjacent domains when your situation calls for them.

// What buyers ask

Frequently asked.

How is this different from the OEM-affiliated infrastructure consulting we've used before?
Three structural differences. (1) We do not earn commission on hardware, software, or services that result from our advisory work — the wall is hard and disclosed. (2) We do not place senior names on proposals and then run the engagement with juniors. (3) We will tell you when WUC isn't the right firm for the question. Most OEM-affiliated practices structurally cannot do those three things; their economics don't allow it.
What does a typical engagement cost?
Tier 1 strategic assessments range from a low-five-figure to mid-six-figure fixed price depending on scope, complexity, and timeline. Tier 2 quarterly retainers are scoped against the breadth of decisions the retainer covers and the level of senior-advisor presence required. Tier 3 implementation oversight is time-and-materials or milestone-based. Specific numbers come at engagement scoping; we don't quote ranges in marketing because a five-vendor consolidation and a fifty-vendor consolidation are not the same engagement at any price point.
How long does the typical Tier 1 strategic assessment take?
Four to eight weeks from engagement letter signature to executive briefing. Five weeks is the median. The shape: week 1 is data inventory and stakeholder interviews; weeks 2–3 are analysis and modeling; week 4 is internal review and draft delivery; weeks 5–6 (when needed) are revisions and the executive briefing. Faster is possible for narrowly-scoped questions. Slower indicates the question is bigger than a Tier 1 — we'd say so before you sign.
How do you maintain independence when WUC also has a maintenance and procurement business?
The advisory practice is a separate revenue line with its own P&L. The wall is operational: advisory engagements never recommend the WUC product or service WUC would otherwise sell into the engagement. If your situation calls for third-party maintenance, our advisory deliverable will name the market alternatives — including direct OEM extended support and competing TPM providers — and will recuse on the WUC option. Buyers can choose WUC's operational services after advisory ends, on their own evaluation. Many do; many don't. The advisory deliverable doesn't change either way.
Will I get a senior advisor on my engagement, or will it be juniors writing under a partner's name?
The senior advisor named on the proposal is the senior advisor doing the work. They are present at every executive briefing, accountable to the deliverable, and reachable directly during the engagement. We may bring analysts onto large engagements for specific data work, but the analysis and recommendations are senior-led and senior-signed. We have walked away from prospects who wanted a senior name with junior delivery. We will continue to.
Can you support our procurement team during a vendor RFP without competing with them?
Yes. We work alongside procurement teams routinely on RFP scoping, vendor scoring frameworks, and contract review. We do not run procurement events ourselves — that's their function. We provide the technical depth your procurement team often doesn't have in-house, costed as advisory time, with no incentive on which vendor wins. The strongest engagements are where procurement and advisory operate as one team against the vendor, not two voices the vendor can split.

Schedule a strategic advisory call.

45 minutes with a senior advisor. Bring the decision you're working through, the constraints you're operating against, and the question your current vendors won't answer cleanly. We'll tell you honestly whether a WUC engagement is the right move — and if it isn't, who would be.

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// 45-minute call · No obligation · No follow-up sequence unless you ask for one