What follows is my reading of the Italian and European IT market, from the perspective of someone working inside it — as an advisor, as a builder of services, and as a buyer of them. It isn’t cynical: it’s operational.
Last revised: 27 May 2026.
Thesis, in one sentence
IT sourcing is a knowledge problem before it is a pricing problem. Buyers without understanding pay more, and find out late — typically at the second contract renewal.
Everything that follows is the reasoning behind that sentence.
How I see it
- IT consulting is three different trades under one roof. Advisory (telling you what to do), delivery (doing it), managed services (keeping it running). Conflating the three in staff augmentation is why the Italian market struggles to consolidate.
- A good vendor isn’t the cheapest one, it’s the substitutable one. If switching vendors costs you six months of project time, somebody designed the contract badly — and it isn’t always the vendor.
- An opaque client is an expensive client. Most projects that go over budget aren’t the vendor’s fault: they’re a client that couldn’t articulate what they wanted, and pays for the variance.
- The Italian compliance market is shaped like an hourglass. On top, specialist advisory (Big4, plus boutiques like P4I, ICTLC, Spike Reply) selling interpretation and signed documents. At the bottom, global platforms (ServiceNow, OneTrust, Drata, Vanta) pushing the cost of evidence down. In between, Italian custom software, squeezed from both sides. Working out where you sit in the hourglass is the first piece of serious sourcing work — before any conversation about price, SLA, or T&M.
Essays on this topic
Work with me
I don’t sell hours. I sell context readings and defensible decisions. Engagements are short, documented, and leave an artefact with the client.
Who it's for
CIOs or Heads of IT about to sign (or renegotiate) a six- or seven-figure IT services contract
Procurement directors who suspect the RFP in their hand is buying something different from what they actually need
SME founders who inherited a legacy vendor and don’t know whether to replace or consolidate them
Public administrations wanting a second opinion before a significant tender
How I work
- Sourcing assessment (2–3 weeks)
I read contracts, KPIs, ticketing history, and talk with the people living inside the service. Output: a 15–25 page document with a judgement on what to keep, renegotiate, or replace.
- RFP review (1–2 weeks)
Before it goes out, or before you sign. I check whether what you’re asking for is what you’ll actually receive. Output: a list of risks and a rewrite of the weakest clauses.
- Decision-making coaching (ongoing)
A couple of calls per month when a sourcing decision is on the table and you want a counterpart who isn’t selling anything. No delivery, just a second head.
Engagement FAQ
- How long does a typical engagement last?
Two to six weeks for an assessment, a couple of months for ongoing coaching. No open-ended T&M engagements.
- How is it billed?
Per output, not per day. The price is agreed up front and tied to a deliverable document. No disguised scope creep.
- Do you work with vendors or only with buyers?
Only with buyers. To avoid conflicts of interest, I don’t take engagements from IT services vendors who might end up under my review at a client.
- Can you also do delivery?
No. Independent advisory works because it has no incentive to sell you more work. If execution is needed, I support the decisions around it but I don’t execute it.
Email me at hello@margiovanni.it with a couple of lines of context. I reply within a few business days with a concrete proposal, or a polite no if it's not my scope.
Questions & answers
What's wrong with time & materials?
Nothing inherently — it’s wrong as a default. T&M works when the scope is genuinely unknown and the client has internal competence to verify output. In every other case it aligns the vendor’s incentive with maximum hour consumption, which is exactly what you don’t want.
What should a CIO ask a vendor?
Before pricing: a delivery architecture. Who does what, with what measurable milestones, with what success KPI that isn’t ‘invoiced hours delivered on time’. If the vendor can’t answer, you’re buying a problem.