Short answers first. If your question is not here, write to marcin@caterpillar.garden.
What Caterpillar Garden does
What does Caterpillar Garden do?
Caterpillar Garden helps companies make IT decisions that both IT and finance will sign. I do not implement systems or sell licences – I sell the decision: what to do, what to defer and what not to do, with a business case for each option.
Do you do implementations?
No. I do not implement, and I do not run "who should we let go" audits. You choose who delivers: your own team, your own IT person, or a partner from my network, recommended without commission.
Who is it for?
Owners of companies with roughly 50–250 people and their own IT – even if that is two people – and IT leaders, CFOs and boards of larger European organisations who need to decide on an IT investment with numbers rather than opinions.
Who is it not for?
Companies without a budget or clear funding, without access to the people who decide, or where IT has no influence on the processes it serves. In those cases I will tell you so on the first call.
Why are there no client names on this site?
Because my clients prefer it that way, and I respect that. Nobody wants to announce in public that their IT was a mess before we started. The numbers on this site are real; the names stay with the clients. The one name you see, Rauf Aliyev of Proteach, is there because he offered it himself.
Before you decide
Which path should I take: my current vendor, a new vendor, a freelancer, or build it ourselves?
Each makes sense in a different situation, but all four skip the question of whether it is worth building at all. An opener is the step before choosing the path: for a fraction of the cost of the implementation you find out where the problem really sits, and only then pick who delivers.
Why don't you implement what you recommend?
Because then I would have an interest in what you buy. One client in Switzerland bought 20 licences for about $400 a month instead of a migration estimated at around €1 million. Only someone who does not sell migrations can give that recommendation.
What if the recommendation is "don't buy"?
That is a full result. In a smaller company it usually saves a system worth tens of thousands of euros; in a larger one, an initiative of the same order.
You don't know my industry.
I don't have to – you do. I work on the value stream and on hypotheses, and take the domain knowledge from your people in the workshops.
What you get
What will I have at the end?
A decision on one page, a list of hypotheses with cheap ways to test them, and a report you can take to your board, your bank or a grant office. Every recommendation carries two signatures: IT's for technical soundness and finance's for the business case.
What is my part, and what is yours?
You bring the context and the people who know the reality. I bring the diagnosis, the hypotheses and the decision options. In Lite you collect the data yourself with templates I provide; I spend one day on the analysis, we go through the results and you receive the report.
IT and the business say different things. Whose side are you on?
Neither. I translate both into hypotheses and numbers, and every recommendation has to be signed by both.
What happens afterwards?
The recommendation assigns the work to your team, your IT person or a partner. If you want, I stay on in a quarterly rhythm (Strategic Steering) to keep the course, with part of the fee tied to the KPIs actually delivered.
Price and process
How much does it cost?
Lite starts at €1,500 for any topic. A full opener starts at €3,000 (Value-Flow Thinking Sprint) and goes up to €9,000 (IT Operating Model Assessment); the topic sets the price, not negotiation. A Strategy Sprint is typically €15,000–25,000, built from modules. Every price is fixed and known before we start.
How long does it take?
Lite: one day of analysis once your data is in. A full opener: one to four weeks, depending on the topic. From "yes" to the first workshop takes about a week – the framework agreement, NDA and templates are ready.
Do we have to meet?
No. The CoE Maturity Review for Proteach, a training and certification centre in Azerbaijan, ran fully asynchronously: about fifteen e-mails, zero meetings, a report and a recorded walkthrough.
Do I pay for time or for results?
Openers and Sprints have a fixed price. Steering is a light monthly fee plus a success fee tied to the KPIs.
Is the opener a discount on an implementation?
No. The opener fee is credited against a Strategy Sprint or Program – never against an implementation. That is the difference from "free" audits that are paid back through the vendor's project.
Compared with the alternatives
How is this different from a European Digital Innovation Hub?
EDIHs assess digital maturity free of charge and let you test technologies – worth using. I come in when there is a specific spend and a specific vendor on the table, and you need a decision with numbers.
How is this different from an AI audit for a few thousand euros?
Such an audit maps processes for automation and is usually deducted from an implementation by the same company. The AI Readiness Snapshot looks for the four or five places where AI gives back hours of expensive specialists' time, and calculates the business case – with no interest in the implementation.
How is this different from a large consultancy?
I do not write a new strategy. From what you already have, I pick one hypothesis and one cheap test for this quarter.