Managed ERP & Virtual ICT Manager
Managed ERP support and a virtual ICT manager on retainer: ERP oversight, developer governance, backups, security, vendor management and board reporting.
A senior technology team on retainer: we run, secure and keep improving your ERP and ICT estate, and oversee your in-house developers, while you keep full ownership of the code, data and accounts.
Many organisations reach the same point after their ERP goes live. The system now runs finance, payroll, stock and operations, but the person who understands it is one developer, or a vendor who has moved on, or a former employee whose phone number nobody has. Backups are assumed rather than tested. Changes go straight to production. Nobody can tell the board whether the system is secure, what it costs to run, or what happens if it goes down on payroll day.
A full-time ICT manager with ERP, security and infrastructure depth is expensive and hard to hire, and a single hire is itself a key-person risk. Our managed ERP and virtual ICT manager service gives you that seniority on retainer instead: a named lead who owns your technology agenda, backed by our ERP engineers, security team and 24/7 SOC, at a fraction of the cost of building the same bench in-house.
One principle is not negotiable: you own everything. Source code, databases, cloud and domain accounts, licences and documentation stay in your name and under your control. We work inside your accounts with access you can revoke, document as we go, and measure ourselves on how little your organisation would lose if we left tomorrow.
What's included
- Virtual ICT manager: A named senior lead who attends your management meetings, owns the ICT roadmap and budget, manages vendors and licences, and reports to the board in plain language.
- ERP support & administration: Day-to-day support for users, configuration and master-data changes, month-end and payroll-run support, KRA eTIMS and M-Pesa integration health, and upgrades handled safely.
- Developer oversight & governance: Code review, Git and branching discipline, release management and documentation standards for your in-house or contracted developers, so changes stop going straight to production.
- Security & access control: Periodic VAPT, quarterly access reviews, database and server hardening, and optional 24/7 SOC monitoring with EDR/MDR, so the system holding your finances is defended like it.
- Infrastructure, backups & DR: Cloud or on-premise hosting management, monitoring, patching, and backups that are restore-tested on a schedule against agreed recovery targets, not merely assumed to work.
- Enhancements & continuous improvement: New reports, workflows, modules and integrations scoped and delivered as your business changes, prioritised against a roadmap you agree rather than whoever shouts loudest.
How it works
- Discovery & responsibility matrix: We map your systems, people, vendors and contracts, then agree in writing which areas Neurobyte owns, which are shared, and which stay with your team under our oversight.
- Takeover & knowledge transfer: We document the ERP, its integrations, servers and data flows, move code into version control you own, and capture what currently lives only in one person's head.
- Stabilise & secure: Fix the urgent risks first: untested backups, shared admin passwords, unpatched servers, missing monitoring and direct production changes.
- Run & support: Agreed service levels for user support and incidents, scheduled maintenance windows, release management and vendor coordination, every month.
- Report & govern: A monthly management report covering uptime, incidents, changes, security posture, backups and spend, plus a quarterly review with leadership.
- Improve & plan ahead: A rolling twelve-month ICT roadmap and budget, so upgrades, renewals and new projects are planned rather than discovered in a crisis.
What you walk away with
- Signed responsibility matrix and service levels
- System documentation, architecture and data-flow diagrams
- Source code in version control under your ownership
- Restore-tested backup and disaster-recovery plan
- Monthly management report and quarterly leadership review
- Rolling twelve-month ICT roadmap and budget
Frequently asked questions
What is a virtual ICT manager?
A virtual ICT manager is a senior technology lead you retain rather than employ. They do what a full-time ICT manager would: own the technology roadmap and budget, manage vendors and licences, oversee developers and support staff, make sure systems are secure and backed up, and report to management and the board. The difference is that you get that seniority for part of the week, with a whole team behind it for ERP engineering, security and infrastructure, instead of one person who has to be expert in everything and becomes a single point of failure.
We already have in-house developers. Do we still need this?
Often that is exactly when it helps most. In-house developers are usually strong on building features and stretched on everything around them: code review, release discipline, documentation, security testing, backups and infrastructure. We do not replace your team. We give them standards, review their changes, handle the specialist areas they should not have to, and make sure the knowledge of how your system works is written down and owned by the organisation rather than by individuals.
Who owns the code, data and accounts?
You do, completely. Source code repositories, databases, cloud, hosting and domain accounts, software licences and documentation are held in your organisation's name. We work through named accounts with access you grant and can revoke at any time, and every change we make is recorded. If the engagement ends, the handover is a formality because everything is already documented and already yours.
Can you support an ERP you did not build?
Yes. Many engagements start with a system built by another vendor, a former employee or an in-house team. The first phase is a structured takeover: we review the code, database and infrastructure, document how it works, identify the risks, and agree a stabilisation plan before we take responsibility for running it. Where the system is an established platform such as Odoo or a vendor product, we work alongside the vendor and manage that relationship on your behalf.
How is the retainer priced?
As a fixed monthly retainer scoped to your estate, usually with a one-off takeover phase at the start. What moves the price is the number of systems and integrations, the size of your developer team, how many responsibility areas we own rather than oversee, your recovery-time targets, and whether 24/7 SOC monitoring is included. Feature development beyond the agreed scope is quoted separately. We scope after a discovery session so the retainer reflects your environment, not a generic package.
What happens if the ERP goes down?
Incidents follow the response times agreed in your service levels, with a named escalation path. Because we monitor the system, we often see a problem before your users report it. Recovery runs against a documented plan and backups we have actually test-restored, so the question during an outage is how quickly, not whether. Every significant incident ends with a written root-cause report and the fix that stops it recurring.