By role: CIOs and IT leads
Automation and AI governance for CIOs and IT leads
The business is already building with Zapier, Make, Airtable and AI tools. You are accountable for the risk either way. We help you bring that work under control and build the next part properly.
- First workflow live
- Automation inventory sync, usually inside the first sprint
- Usually owned by
- CIOs and CTOs responsible for business systems
- Built on
- Microsoft 365, Slack, Retool
- Judged on
- Known automations and Personal credentials in workflows
In short
For a CIO or IT lead, automation governance means knowing every workflow, tool and AI step the business runs, who owns it, what data it touches and what access it holds. SBD inventories the existing estate, moves secrets and access under SSO and least privilege, documents each workflow, and builds new automation in your accounts to pass your security review.
Who this is for
Who you work with to get this done.
- CIOs and CTOs responsible for business systems
- IT leads in companies without a dedicated integration team
- Security and compliance owners reviewing AI use
- Heads of business systems inheriting no-code sprawl
Is this you?
If three of these sound like your week, this page is about your week.
- You could not list every automation the business runs
- Some workflows run on the account of someone who has left
- Teams use AI tools you have not reviewed
- API keys sit in documents or chat messages
- A vendor has asked for admin access to make a small change
- Leadership wants AI in production and you have no policy yet
What it costs today
Where CIOs and IT leads loses the hours.
Shadow IT you did not approve
Teams signed up for automation and AI tools on personal cards, connected them to the CRM and the mailbox, and told nobody.
Integrations nobody can explain
Workflows built by people who have left, running on personal accounts and API keys that never expire. You find them when they break.
Every vendor fails the questionnaire
The business wants a partner quickly. The partner cannot answer where data is processed, who has access or how a leaver is removed.
You are asked for an AI policy and a roadmap at once
Leadership wants AI in production this quarter and an assurance that nothing sensitive leaves the building. Both land on you.
For CIOs and IT leads
Find out what is already running.
We will inventory the automations and AI tools in use across the business, rank them by risk, and give you a plan you can take to leadership.
Start with an inventory
By company size
CIOs and IT leads at 10 people, and at 1,000.
- 1 to 10
IT is a founder or an office manager. Credentials live in a password sheet and every tool is an admin account.
- 11 to 50
A part-time IT lead, dozens of SaaS tools, and automations built by whoever needed them first.
- 51 to 200
An IT team that owns devices and identity but not the hundred workflows the business runs on.
- 201 to 1,000
Formal vendor review, audit requirements, and departments building AI pilots faster than they can be assessed.
What we build
What we build for CIOs and IT leads teams.
- 01
An inventory of the automation estate
Every Zap, scenario, script, base and AI tool listed with its owner, the systems it connects, the data it moves and the credential it uses.
- 02
Access under SSO and least privilege
Service accounts instead of personal logins, scoped API keys in a vault, SSO where the tool supports it, and joiner and leaver steps that cover automation tools too.
- 03
Governed no-code
Clear rules on which tools teams may build in, a review step before a workflow touches customer or finance data, and monitoring that alerts IT when something stops.
- 04
New builds that pass review
Internal tools and agents built in your accounts, with role-based access, audit logs, documented data flows and a handover your team can run.
The workflows
The CIOs and IT leads workflows, and what sets each one off.
- 01 Automation inventory sync
When weekly
ThenNew and changed workflows across tools pulled into one register
- 02 New tool request
When a team asks to connect a new SaaS or AI tool
ThenA review ticket with data types, scopes and owner, routed to IT
- 03 Leaver revocation
When a leaver record is created
ThenAccess removed across automation and AI tools, with a report
- 04 Workflow failure alert
When a monitored workflow errors or stops running
ThenIT and the workflow owner alerted with the run that failed
The numbers we move
How a CIOs and IT leads build is judged.
Every build has a number written into the blueprint. These are the ones CIOs and IT leads builds are measured by, and how we measure them.
| Metric | Before | After | How it is measured |
|---|---|---|---|
| Known automations | Unknown | Every workflow listed with an owner | Count of workflows in the inventory versus those found in tool audit logs |
| Personal credentials in workflows | Common | None on business-critical flows | Workflows authenticated with a named person rather than a service account |
| Leaver access to automation tools | Removed by memory | Removed on the leaver record | Accounts still active after a leaver date, checked monthly |
| Silent failures | Found by customers | Alerted to IT | Failures first reported by monitoring rather than by a user |
Built on
The tools you already run, where we can.
Every tool we connect has its own page in the integrations directory.
Proof
Proof from builds like this.
- Customer story
Internal operations tool replacing SmartSuite
A SmartSuite workspace replaced with a purpose-built tool for a consulting firm: roles enforced on the server and no shared logins.
Read the story - Customer story
AI outbound sales platform
An AI platform with tenant isolation on every row and a human handoff, the controls an IT review looks for in an AI system.
Read the story - Customer story
Multi-user production dashboard
A multi-user production dashboard with role-based secured access across ten modules for a copper wire manufacturer.
Read the story
How it starts
An audit of the CIOs and IT leads work your team still does by hand.
One to two weeks. We map the workflows, put an hours-a-week figure on each, and give you a costed blueprint in order of payback. The audit is credited in full to the build.
- Week 1 to 2Audit. We sit with the people who do the work and map it.
- Week 3Blueprint. Fixed scope, fixed price, the first build chosen by payback.
- Week 4 onBuild in two-week sprints, working software every second Friday.
- After go-liveSixty days of hypercare, then a care plan or run it yourself.
What this does not do
So the scope is clear before the call.
- Device management, networking or help desk outsourcing.
- Formal certification audits. We help you prepare evidence; your auditor certifies.
- Building in our own accounts and leasing it back to you.
Terms, defined
CIOs and IT leads terms, in plain English.
- Shadow IT
- Software and automations the business uses without IT knowing or approving them.
- Least privilege
- Giving each account and integration only the access it needs to do its job, and no more.
- Service account
- An account owned by the organisation rather than a person, used so workflows survive staff changes.
- Automation estate
- The full set of workflows, scripts, bases and AI steps a business depends on, across every tool.
Questions
What people ask about CIOs and IT leads automation.
Will you complete our security questionnaire?
Yes. Our security practices, subprocessors and data processing terms are published on the trust centre at /trust/, and we answer your own questionnaire before any access is granted.
Do you work in our accounts or yours?
Yours. Builds run in your tenancy under accounts you own and can revoke. We request the least access the work needs and hand back everything at the end.
Should we stop teams using no-code tools?
Usually not. Banning them pushes the work further out of sight. The better route is an approved list, a review step for sensitive data, and monitoring. If you are choosing between platforms, our page for /platform-consultants/ explains how we compare them.
How does an engagement run with IT?
An Automation Audit at $500, credited to any build, produces the inventory and a risk-ranked list. Builds start at $2,500, most fall between $5,000 and $15,000, and care plans from $50 a month cover monitoring and fixes.
Reading
- Security
Your Lovable app is probably public
Over 170 Lovable-built apps had open databases in one disclosure. How the leak works, the three named breaches of 2026, and the twenty-minute check to run.
- Operations
Who noticed when the workflow stopped?
Most automation failures are silent: the run shows green and nothing happens for weeks. How it happens in Zapier and n8n, its cost, and the four checks we add.
- Systems
How much should an AI agent be allowed to do?
An agent with an unscoped token dropped a production database and its backups in nine seconds. Our rule: read widely, write narrowly, cap spend, escalate.
- Pricing
n8n self-hosted or cloud for a team under 50?
Self-hosting n8n costs a few dollars a month for the server and far more for the person who runs it. The break-even, what you take on, and our advice.
Related
- Function
IT
Joiners get access, leavers lose it, requests route themselves, and the automations the business runs on are documented and watched.
- Function
Compliance and risk
Make the audit trail a by-product of doing the work, not a project you run afterwards.
- Role
CFOs and finance directors
You want the close faster, the numbers trusted and every spend justified. We give you a fixed price per fix, an audit trail on every step, and approvals that stay with people.
- Role
COOs and heads of operations
You are measured on throughput, cost and the things that did not go wrong. We find where the hours go, fix the worst of it at a fixed price, and hand you something you can govern.
By role: COOs and heads of operations, CFOs and finance directors, Founders and CEOs, Heads of sales and RevOps, Heads of customer support, HR and people leads, Marketing leads
CIOs and IT leads
Get the CIOs and IT leads hours back.
Bring the one CIOs and IT leads workflow your team still runs by hand. You leave the call with a yes or no on fit and the first thing we would build.
Book the call