Why ECHO 7^® exists.

Your IT invoices show what you pay. They don't show what it costs you. Echo 7® exists to find that number, set it out plainly and help you act on it.

IT estates tend to grow in stages, under pressure, built by whoever was available at the time. After a few years, few people can say what the whole picture looks like. The gap between what a business thinks its systems can do and what they actually do carries a cost in money, time and control, and it is rarely measured. Echo 7 measures it, then helps you close it.

Who founded Echo 7

Paul Kelly has worked in commercial and public sector organisations since the early 2010s, delivering digital transformation as a freelance programme manager at the sharp end of IT projects. The work looked straightforward on paper: clear objectives, willing stakeholders, a defined scope. Then, consistently, someone would lift the lid on IT.

The details differed every time: out-of-date servers, software licences nobody could fully account for, knowledge lost when people left, shadow IT growing in the gaps. The pattern did not. When the business decided to move forward, the estate pushed back. Ownership was hard to establish, and teams avoided touching what they could not account for. Scope shrank, timelines slipped, and what finally landed was rarely what anyone had planned.

He navigated the pitfalls of legacy systems and infrastructure, and saw first hand the concessions, workarounds and dismissal of IT debt, and the risks that come with it.

Paul founded Echo 7 to fix that problem at the source. To measure the estate before the project starts, so that when a business decides to move, the ground beneath it is actually solid.

Paul leads Echo 7 and orchestrates the work. A team of specialists covers enterprise architecture, Azure administration, licensing and other disciplines, and others can take ownership of a client account, so the lead on your account has specialist depth behind them.

How we work

Every engagement starts with the Sovereignty Index®, a fixed-fee diagnostic that scores your business across five areas: Identity, Velocity, Resilience, Security and Cognitive. You get a specific answer, including the annual cost of your technical debt, so you have something concrete to act on.

If action is needed, we work in phases scoped to what the diagnostic found. Each phase has an outcome agreed before it starts. Ongoing support through Managed Sovereignty is optional.

Common questions

How long does a Sovereignty Index® assessment take?

We commit to delivering the written report within four weeks of the opening session, once we have the access we need from you. If we miss that date, the fee reduces by 10% for each week the report is late, up to 50% of the fee. The work covers an initial briefing, a structured review of your estate's documentation and configuration, and a modelling stage with the people who know the estate. You receive a written report, not a slide deck.

What happens after the assessment?

You receive a scored position across the five pillars, a calculated Technical Debt Burden in pounds, and a prioritised set of findings. From there you decide what to act on. There is no obligation to continue with Echo 7. Some businesses take the findings to their existing IT team; others engage us for specific remediation phases. The diagnostic is self-contained.

How is this different from an IT managed service provider?

A managed service provider maintains what is already there. Echo 7 tells you whether what is there is worth maintaining, and at what cost. The Sovereignty Index® is a diagnostic, not a support contract, and any work that follows is scoped to specific outcomes. Ongoing support through Managed Sovereignty is optional.

Is there any commitment required after the first call?

No. The first call is a conversation about your situation. If the Sovereignty Index® is the right next step, we will tell you exactly what it involves and what it costs. You decide.

We already have an IT team or an MSP. Why would we need Echo 7?

Because the people running your estate are rarely the ones who can objectively assess it. An internal IT team has limited visibility of what good looks like elsewhere. An MSP has a commercial interest in the current arrangement. Echo 7 has neither. The Sovereignty Index® gives your board a view of the estate that neither your team nor your provider will produce unprompted.

Getting in touch

If you have never put a number on what your IT costs, or you haven't checked your position since a cloud migration, a vendor renewal or a period of fast growth, the Sovereignty Index® closes that gap. When did you last check yours?