Independent advice on the software and systems your business runs on, from strategy and system selection through to integration, cloud and AI. We recommend what fits, and we can build it or hand it to your own IT provider.
Most businesses already have someone who resets passwords and replaces laptops. What they often lack is someone who looks across all their systems and asks whether the setup still suits the way the business works. That gap is where IT consulting earns its fee: a decision about which platform to buy, a plan to retire a server, or a fix for the three systems that each hold a different customer list.
Solve8 works on the software and solution side of IT. We review how your systems fit together, recommend changes, and then design and build the integrations, reporting and custom software that put those recommendations into practice. AI is part of what we do, and we treat it as one option among several.
The size of your business matters less than the problem in front of you. If one of these sounds familiar, a scoping call is a sensible first step.
Accounting, CRM, job management and payroll each hold part of the picture, and staff copy data between them by hand.
A system the vendor no longer patches, a custom database only one person understands, or an on-premise server nobody wants to touch.
Quoting, scheduling or reporting held together by workbooks with formulas that break when someone sorts the wrong column.
Subscriptions that overlap, licences assigned to people who left, and no clear view of what each system costs or returns.
Teams and SharePoint sites created one project at a time, wide sharing links, and multi-factor authentication applied unevenly.
You need a new ERP, CRM or field service platform and every vendor demo looks good. You want an independent view before you sign.
Servers due for replacement and a question about whether to move workloads to Azure, AWS or a SaaS product, and in what order.
Files spread across shared drives, email and personal OneDrives, with no reliable way to find the current version.
If spreadsheets are the issue, our decision framework for replacing Excel helps separate the workbooks that are fine from the ones that are a risk. To put a number on rekeying, try the manual data entry cost calculator.
Most engagements draw on two or three of these areas. The scoping call decides which.
A plain-language view of your current systems, what each costs, where the risks sit, and a sequenced plan for the next one to three years. The roadmap ranks work by business value and dependency, so the first project makes the later ones easier. When the plan includes AI, our AI strategy work slots into the same roadmap.
Vendor-neutral evaluation of ERP, CRM, job management, document management and reporting platforms. We write the requirements first, score each option against them, and test the claims that matter in a demo. Our vendor selection questions and build versus buy framework show how we approach it.
How data should move between your systems, which one is the source of truth for each record, and how to connect older software without replacing it. Design work can flow straight into delivery through our system integration service. For older platforms, see legacy system integration without rip and replace.
Tenant structure, sharing defaults, licence fit and a migration plan for file servers and line-of-business applications. We compare Azure, AWS and SaaS options on cost, data location and support effort. Our AWS, Azure and Google Cloud comparison covers the Australian regions, and Copilot readiness covers permissions before an AI rollout.
Data models, Power BI reporting and document management that give one version of the numbers. The approach is shown in our documented Seymour Whyte carbon reporting case study. Before any reporting project we check data quality, because a dashboard is only as good as what feeds it.
Australian Privacy Principle 11 requires reasonable steps to protect personal information from misuse, loss and unauthorised access. We map where personal information lives, who can open it and which controls are missing, then line that up with the ASD Essential Eight. Our guides to cyber security requirements and Privacy Act compliance go further.
AI reads invoices, answers questions from your own documents and drafts routine replies well. It is the wrong tool for a calculation a formula already gets right. We judge each idea against simpler options first, and when AI is the answer, process automation or private AI infrastructure takes it into production.
Every engagement follows the same five stages. You can stop after any of them and keep what has been delivered.
Scoping call. We talk through the problem, the systems involved and any deadline attached, such as a contract renewal or an end-of-support date. You get a written scope and a fixed fee for discovery afterwards.
Discovery and audit. We interview the people who use the systems, review configuration and licences with read-only access where possible, and trace how data moves from one system to the next. This is where the real cost of manual workarounds usually becomes visible.
Recommendations. You receive options with their trade-offs, costs to investigate and a recommended path. We walk your leadership team through it, answer questions, and revise it if the business sees priorities differently.
Implementation or hand-off. We can build the integrations, reporting or software ourselves, or package the design so your internal team or managed service provider can deliver it. Either path is fine with us.
Ongoing support and improvement. For systems we build, we offer support and further improvement afterwards. AI and automation in production can sit under our managed AI services.
Scope is agreed before work starts, so this is the usual shape and changes to suit the engagement.
It saves everyone time to say this early. Solve8 is a consulting and build practice. We do not run a 24/7 helpdesk, we do not do desk-side break-fix support, and we do not resell hardware, devices or networking equipment. If your most urgent need is someone to fix printers, image laptops or answer support tickets around the clock, a managed service provider is the better choice.
Many of the businesses who need IT consulting already have an MSP or an internal IT person, and that arrangement works well. Your provider keeps the day-to-day support. We cover the strategy, selection, integration and software work that a support contract does not include, and we brief your provider so nothing falls between the two.
Solve8 is based at 9/86 City Rd, Beenleigh QLD 4207, between Brisbane and the Gold Coast. We provide IT consulting in Brisbane and across South East Queensland in person, and to businesses in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Adelaide largely remotely, through Teams sessions and agreed access to your systems.
Remote delivery suits most of this work, because the systems we review live in the cloud or on servers reachable from anywhere. Where a workshop works better face to face, we travel. The pages below cover each city and region, including the industries we know well there.
See all locations we serve.
You deal directly with the person doing the work. Our principal consultant spent 18 years on data platform and integration projects, delivered while working with previous consulting employers, and has founded several software products. For client work, we only publish what is documented, such as our Tier 1 infrastructure reporting case study. Our own products are listed under case studies, labelled as founder projects.
Our principal consultant brings 18 years of enterprise delivery experience from projects for BHP, Rio Tinto and Senex Energy, delivered with previous consulting employers. These companies are not Solve8 clients. You work directly with senior people, not a sales team handing you off to juniors.
When no product on the market fits the process, we design and build the software ourselves.
Learn moreConnecting accounting, CRM, ERP and operational systems so data is entered once.
Learn moreTaking manual, repetitive work such as document handling and rekeying out of people's day.
Learn moreDeciding which AI use cases are worth funding and in what order, before any build starts.
Learn moreA permissions and labelling audit of Microsoft 365 before Copilot licences are switched on.
Learn moreMonitoring, tuning and support for AI and automation once it is in production.
Learn moreSelf-hosted models on your servers or in an Australian region when data cannot leave your control.
Learn moreExperienced data and integration people added to your own team for a defined period.
Learn moreStill weighing up whether to bring in outside help? Our comparison of a consultant, an in-house hire or an agency sets out the trade-offs, and the AI readiness assessment is a quick self-check before a conversation.
For engagement starting points, see our pricing page. More answers are on the FAQ page.
Book a 30-minute scoping call. Bring the system decision, integration headache or spreadsheet you are worried about, and we will agree whether consulting is the right next step and what it should cover.