Harbor Equipment Services Uses a Fractional CTO Before Hiring Full-Time

Situation. Harbor Equipment Services maintains industrial equipment across six states. It has 620 employees and $140 million in revenue. Technology consists of an ERP, field-service system, customer portal, finance tools, warehouse systems, and dozens of spreadsheets. A managed provider operates infrastructure and security. The controller sponsors ERP changes. No executive owns technology as a whole.

The CEO wants a CTO to improve customer experience, reduce field inefficiency, and “bring AI into the business.” The CFO worries about cost. A failed recovery test and an expiring provider contract create urgency.

Diagnosis. The work is mostly CIO-like: control the estate, manage vendors, improve resilience, clarify data and process ownership, and focus transformation. The company may later build differentiated customer capability, but it first needs internal judgment.

Daily management is handled by a capable IT manager. The executive-sized work includes vendor negotiation, risk decisions, roadmap, business ownership, and deciding whether customer technology should become a product capability. This work is meaningful but not yet full-time.

Fractional Charter. Harbor hires a fractional CTO for two days a week for six months. The charter includes:

• Critical systems, contracts, and ownership inventory.
• Recovery and security triage with the provider and insurer.
• Provider renewal decision and exit options.
• Portfolio stop-doing review.
• Customer and field-service opportunity assessment.
• Full-time leadership recommendation by month four.

The IT manager owns execution. The fractional CTO can recommend and negotiate within limits but cannot make employment decisions alone. Emergency coverage remains with the provider and IT manager. Vendor referral fees are prohibited.

Results. The recovery gap is more serious than expected. The CEO accepts a funded treatment plan. The provider renewal is shortened and includes documentation, access, service evidence, and transition help. Twelve active initiatives become four. The AI forecasting idea is postponed because asset and service data is inconsistent and no operating owner exists.

By month four, the work has expanded. A new customer service offering requires product, integration, security, data, and field-operation decisions every week. The IT manager can run internal services but should not lead product technology. The fractional CTO recommends a full-time combined CTO/CIO with a product-technology deputy in the future.

Search and Transfer. The fractional CTO helps write the mandate but is not a candidate and receives no success fee for the hire. The dossier gives candidates an unusually honest view of systems, contracts, risk, and business opportunity.

The selected candidate has led technology in a service business and built a customer portal, but has not managed a large product engineering team. The mandate does not require one yet. The known-risk plan includes product leadership support if the offering grows.

The fractional CTO overlaps for six weeks, transfers vendor and decision records, and leaves the executive cadence to the full-time leader.

Lesson. Fractional was not a discounted full-time CTO. It was a bounded discovery and control mission that produced enough evidence to define the permanent job.