Great IT support isn’t about reacting to problems. It’s about preventing them.
At The Fulcrum Group, we believe managed IT services should be more than a helpdesk. That’s why our SPOT Managed Services are powered by STARPower™ — our proprietary Standards and Technology Alignment Review process that aligns your IT with your business goals, not just your inbox.
If your IT seems “fine” until it suddenly isn’t — if you’re rebuilding your network every 3–5 years or stuck in reactive mode — it’s not a technology issue. It’s a process problem. STARPower solves that.
What Is STARPower?
STARPower is Fulcrum’s structured, proactive approach to IT service delivery — a system that continuously aligns your technology environment with best practices, business objectives, and cybersecurity standards.
Instead of reacting to symptoms, STARPower identifies and addresses root causes. We don’t just keep the lights on — we help you look forward, budget better, and stay secure and competitive. At a simple level, it is based on our Plan, Do, Review core value.
We
- Ask you your company vision,
- Take a snapshot of your technology environment,
- Ask you where you want to go
- Co-create a roadmap with you
- Meet quarterly to choose actions and make adjustments
- Evaluate our progress.
Why Clients Love STARPower™
✅ Strategic Planning, Not Just Support
You get more than tech fixes — you get a vCIO who helps co-develop your annual IT roadmap based on ROI, compliance, and business enablement.
✅ Predictable Improvements, Not Surprises
Each quarter, we review your systems, identify risks and opportunities, and stage improvements based on your priorities and budget.
✅ Process-Driven, Not Personality-Based
Unlike “IT guys” who operate on gut feel, our STARPower checklists and review cycles (over 600 items and growing) ensure consistent, best-in-class delivery.
✅ Built for SMBs and Public Sector Clients
Whether you’re a business, non-profit, or local government entity, STARPower adapts to your size, structure, and mission-critical operations.
✅ You Become the Hero
You won’t just get fewer complaints — you’ll get kudos. Our clients become the office rockstars because they chose Fulcrum.
STARPower in Action
Here’s what our STARPower™ process includes:
- fCIO Engagement: Your dedicated fCIO meets with your leadership at least quarterly to discuss your business, align technology strategy with your business goals. Always available for questions, to meet with your other vendor partners or general strategy discussions.
- Your fCIO conducts Quarterly Success Reviews. Extracts complex reporting from all our tools into a single document, to better track progress and anticipate future needs.
- Your fCIO analyzes support tickets to find trends, reduce recurring issues, and uncover optimization areas.
- Your fCIO acts as your technology liaison — coordinating with key software, hardware, and telecom vendors.
- Your fCIO helps you act as your internal Security Officer, to make better decisions together and prioritize organizational risks.
- Proactive Services Engineer Visits: Your dedicated PSE visits you quarterly and walks through our “best practices” checklist with a mixture of technical and operational questions and field any emergency onsite needs.
- Over 100 Standards Maturity Model Items: Reviewed quarterly to help you raise the bar in areas appropriate to your business context, opportunities and risks.
- Comprehensive Documentation: Everything from passwords, to site specific SOPs, important IP addresses, to vendor contacts, captured in our client portal.
- Quarterly IT Roadmaps: Plans discussed, broken down by quarter so you always know what’s coming. Our tools can even help track related expenses into our budget engine tool, which helps you priorities and plan investments, turning IT from a cost center, to a strategic asset.
Trust the Process — Built on Proven Frameworks
Our STARPower is influenced by BizDevOps, CIS v8 and ITIL® (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) principles: cross-functional collaboration, continuous improvement, basic cybersecurity hygiene and aligning IT with business outcomes. It’s process-oriented and people-powered — balancing standardization with adaptability.
Our clients enjoy fewer emergencies, more uptime, and better alignment between their business needs and IT investments.
Let’s Put the Power Back in Your Plan
If your network only gets attention when it breaks… If you’re stuck in a refresh-every-5-years loop… If your IT provider never brings strategy to the table… it’s time for STARPower™.
Let’s co-build a plan that evolves with you — not one you outgrow.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What is STARPower™ and does it matter related to standard IT support?
Many managed services providers are smaller, newer to the industry or run by a really strong engineer that may not be as knowledgeable of a full IT department experience. Fixing IT issues when they happen is a skill. But, budgeting, creating a one year technology roadmap, project managing a major network change or conducting a risk assessment are different skills. For firms that see IT as a cost center to be lowered, standard IT support is usually a great fit. But, other firms count on technology as a competitive advantage, to engage deeper with clients, automate processes and avoid more hiring with end user designed solutions.
STARPower™ is The Fulcrum Group’s proprietary Standards and Technology Alignment Review process. Unlike standard IT support that only reacts to problems after they happen, STARPower™ proactively aligns your IT environment with industry best practices, your business goals, and cybersecurity standards. It’s not just about keeping systems running — it’s about hearing your goals, helping you plan ahead, budget smart, and stay competitive.
2. How does STARPower™ help prevent IT problems before they happen?
Our process includes quarterly on-site reviews, over 100 current maturity best-practice checkpoints, and deep-dive analysis to uncover root causes. By addressing opportunities and risks before they become emergencies, STARPower™ reduces downtime, increases productivity, and ensures predictable improvements spread throughout a typical year.
3. Who is STARPower™ best suited for?
STARPower™ is ideal for small and mid-sized businesses, nonprofits, and public sector organizations that rely on technology for mission-critical operations. Whether you have no internal IT team or a small one that needs strategic guidance, STARPower™ adapts to your size, industry, and specific compliance needs.
4. What role does the fCIO play in STARPower™?
Your dedicated fractional CIO (fCIO) acts as a strategic advisor, not a tech manager. He is coupled with a dedicated Proactive Services Manager that does the onsite technical reviews so the fCIO is free to analyze and report on the results. They both meet with you individually at least quarterly to review business goals, update your IT roadmap, analyze trends, coordinate with vendors, conduct the onsite portion of the assessment and prioritize your technology investments for maximum ROI and security.
5. What’s included in a STARPower™ review?
Each quarterly review asks questions currently in 15 areas, including:
- Organizational Context
- Basic Documentation
- Applications & Cloud
- Microsoft 365 Environment
- Network Infrastructure
- Server Infrastructure
- Storage
- Hardware
- Security Basics
- Security Next
- Backup and Recovery
- Business Continuity
- Policy
- Compliance
- Artificial Intelligence
The exercise is designed to co-develop a detailed IT roadmap with prioritized actions, timelines, and cost forecasts — so you always decide and plan for what needs to happen next.
6. How does STARPower™ help control IT costs?
STARPower™ eliminates the “surprise IT bill” by turning technology into a predictable, budgeted investment. Our budget engine tracks upcoming needs and aligns spending with your priorities, so IT becomes a strategic asset rather than an unpredictable expense.
7. How quickly can we get started with STARPower™?
The onboarding process typically starts with a discovery call to understand your vision, assess your current IT environment, and set initial priorities. From there, we create your first roadmap and schedule your first quarterly review — so you start seeing value right away. But it is called a roadmap as technology excellence is a journey. It takes time to not just learn your applications and important data repositories, but also how your people use them.
