Where AI pays off here
We map how work actually moves through your organisation, then rank the workflows by hours consumed, error cost and how tractable they are. The output is a shortlist with numbers attached, not a category list.
AI Services
AI consulting that ends with a plan you can actually fund
Most AI strategy work stops at the slide that says "opportunities". We take it to the point where a finance director can approve it: named workflows, sized benefits, honest costs, a delivery order and the risks written down.
Why organisations call us
The strategy exists. The change does not.
By the time we are called in, most organisations have already spent something on AI. What they are missing is a defensible view of what to do next.
- A strategy document that no one can turn into a project plan
- Licences bought across departments with no view of total spend
- Pilots that proved the technology and changed nothing about the work
- Two credible internal camps - one wants to build, one wants to buy - and no way to settle it
- A board asking for AI progress and an exec team without a number to give them
What the engagement covers
Six questions we answer properly
Every consulting engagement is scoped from these. You can take all six or the two that are blocking you.
Build, buy or leave alone
For each candidate, an honest comparison: what the market already sells, what it would cost to build, what it costs to run, and what happens if you do neither. Some workflows are on the list to be told no.
The costed roadmap
A phased plan with cost, effort, dependency and expected benefit per phase, sequenced so the early work funds the later work rather than starving it.
The operating model
Who owns AI decisions, who approves a new tool, where the budget sits, and what an internal capability needs to look like at your size. Most stalled programmes are an ownership problem, not a technology one.
Data readiness
What your systems can actually supply, in what quality, and what has to be fixed before an AI project depends on it. This is where optimistic plans usually break.
The risk position
Regulatory exposure, data protection, supplier concentration and the reputational cases specific to your sector - assessed early, while the plan can still change cheaply.
In practice
What working with us looks like
The engagement runs with the people who do the work, not around them. Sessions are short, scheduled around delivery, and every stage ends with something you can act on.
You get a named consultant for the whole engagement - the person in the room is the person doing the work.
How it runs
Four to eight weeks, start to signed plan
1
Frame
A half-day with the sponsor and the people who own the work, to agree what the engagement must answer and what would count as a good answer.
- Scope and decision questions agreed in writing
- Access to the right people, not just the right documents
2
Evidence
Interviews, workflow observation, system and licence review, and a look at the data you would need to rely on.
- Workflow maps with time and volume attached
- Current AI and automation inventory, including shadow usage
3
Options
We put two or three routes in front of you with the trade-offs made explicit, and we argue for one.
- Build / buy / defer per workflow
- Cost, benefit and risk on the same page
4
Plan
The decision is written up as a costed, sequenced roadmap with owners and a first phase small enough to start next month.
- Board-ready summary and a working delivery plan
- A named first project with a scope you can sign
Deliverables
What you leave with
What you receive
- Prioritised opportunity register with sizing assumptions shown
- Build/buy analysis per opportunity
- Costed, phased roadmap with dependencies
- Target operating model and ownership map
- Data readiness assessment
- Risk and compliance position, mapped to your regulator
- Board pack and a delivery-ready first phase
How we scope and price it
Consulting is fixed scope and fixed price. We agree the questions, the access we need and the deliverables before anything starts, so there is no meter running.
Engagements typically run four to eight weeks depending on how many business areas are in scope. Smaller organisations often need a single two-week pass across one department.
We are not a reseller and we take no commission from any vendor. If the right answer is a product you can buy for a few hundred pounds a month, that is what the report will say.
Where this fits
Related services and sectors
Questions
Questions about ai consulting
Both, and they are priced separately on purpose. You are never obliged to use us for delivery, and the roadmap is written so another supplier could pick it up. In practice most clients ask us to deliver the first phase because we already understand the workflow.
Yes, by name, with the reasoning shown. We hold no vendor partnerships or referral fees, so the recommendation can be a product, an open model you run yourself, or nothing at all.
Usually not. We are most often brought in after a strategy to make it executable - sizing the opportunities properly, testing the data assumptions and turning it into a plan with owners and costs. If your existing strategy already does that, we will tell you and scope down.
Roughly one to two hours per person interviewed, plus a half-day framing session and a half-day playback for the leadership group. We do the work; we do not run a workshop programme that consumes your quarter.
Start with the audit, then decide
Most consulting engagements begin with a short audit so the advice rests on evidence rather than interviews alone.