What to do, why, and when.
Independent counsel for the leaders shaping enterprise technology, and for the vendors selling to them. We read the market, then tell you the move that actually matters.
Knowledge is infinite now. Knowing what matters is not.
We advise enterprise and vendor leaders on what to do, why, and when, and we stop there. We don't implement, and we don't pick your vendors or your people. The moment an advisor profits from the execution, the counsel stops being worth having.
The recommendation is the easy part. The reasoning underneath it is what you are actually paying for: the practical judgment that comes from forty years inside these systems instead of watching them from outside. We show our work, because the why is the part you can use.
Independent judgment, built for the call you have to make.
Two audiences, one standard of truth. Choose the side you're on.
Published positions
Our independent read on the technology market, in the open. Free to read, no vendor's hand on the scale.
Maturity assessment
Build, buy, borrow. An honest read of what you're trying to do against the operating model you have. The end of shelfware nobody can support.
Decision counsel
Private advisory on a specific call: what to do, why, and when, applied to your situation and your constraints.
Vendor & market reads
An honest assessment of the companies you're evaluating: where they're strong, where they're not, and what to ask.
Briefings & roundtables
Closed-door sessions where senior peers work a hard problem with an independent voice in the room.
Story
Be understood by the buyer. Your site, deck, and pitch translated up to the executive who signs, by the buyer they are trying to reach.
Proof
Independent credibility. The Market Brief: a third-party read of your market and where you genuinely fit, published under a name the buyer trusts.
Reach
The independent voice. What makes you different, and who should buy you and why, carried by a voice your buyers follow. Sponsored, never controlled.
Conversion
Win the deal. Get your reps to the economic buyer, arm your champion, and unstick the opportunities that rot in "commit."
The partnership
Always-on: a standing allowance across the menu and independent companion coverage in sync with your launch.
We serve two sides of the same market, and we tell both the truth.
Independence isn't a value statement here. It's how the firm is built.
↹The firewall
Nothing a vendor pays for shapes the counsel an enterprise receives. Nothing an enterprise pays for shapes how we read a vendor. Information flows into judgment. Never between clients.
★Sponsored, not controlled
A vendor can fund our reach and our attention. It cannot buy the conclusion. The day we shill is the day our opinion stops being worth anything.
φThe name
Phronia is drawn from phronesis (φρόνησις), the Greek for practical wisdom: the understanding of what matters, earned by having stood in the decision before. Study gives you knowledge. This is the other thing, the one a machine full of answers still cannot give you.
Howard Holton
Forty years in technology, twenty of them as a CIO, CTO, and CISO, most recently CEO and Chief Product Officer of GigaOm. Phronia Counsel is the practice built on that judgment: the call you can use, and the reasoning that earns it.
Believe in the move before you make it.
To talk about whether Phronia is a fit for your situation, get in touch. We'll tell you the truth either way.