Redesign the work. Build the casebefore you build the technology.
Our main engagement. It answers the question the board has to settle: what needs to change, what is it worth, and should we invest? You end it with the work redesigned and a business case in your own numbers. The commercial baseline and the benefit measures are recorded. Your technology partner gets a high-level solution design.
One engagement in three sizes. A firm examining one process and a firm asking where AI belongs across the company are not buying the same thing. Where the critical part of the case needs demonstrating, we include commercial proof.
Discover the work. Redesign it. Build the case.
Approve AI investment against a quantified case.
This engagement gives the board a quantified commercial case before technical implementation begins. It sets out what changes, what the change is expected to return, what that assumes, and how the return will be measured later.
The work
How the job is done now, and how it would be done instead. Where people act, where AI acts, and what changes for the team.
Roles and operating changes
The roles, responsibilities, decision rights, controls, handovers and exceptions affected by the redesign.
The case
The current baseline and the modelled expected benefit. The assumptions and costs behind it, the risks, and the measures the return will be judged against.
Commercial proof — where required
Where the critical part of the case needs demonstrating, a bounded demonstration in your own context, sufficient to support the decision. Not every engagement needs one.
We are not starting from nothing.
By the time this engagement starts, two layers are already established. This engagement establishes the client-specific evidence that needs access to your business.
Already established
A working view of your sector economics, value chain and the processes most likely to carry value. Plus the priority your leadership team selected, the opportunities ruled out, and the reasoning recorded. This is a sector hypothesis and an indicative view, not detailed knowledge of how your work runs.
AI Opportunity Assessment and AI Business Envisioning WorkshopWhat this engagement establishes
How the work actually runs here — the variants, the exceptions and the workarounds that may not appear in the documented process. Then the redesign, the roles and operating changes, the quantified case, the baseline and benefit measures, and the high-level solution design.
AI Business Case & Process RedesignWhere we stop
Detailed technical design, platform and product decisions, configuration, integration, security, build, deployment and technical operation.
Your technology partnerDiscover. Redesign. Build the case.
Three stages you will see, eight steps we follow, and four workshops with your people along the way. Note where it ends: at the investment decision. We do not build.
Discover
We start with your sector view, then test it against how your business actually runs. Interviews with the leadership team. Walking the process with the people who do the work.
You get: the current state as the work is actually done.
Redesign
The heart of it. How should this work be done if AI capability exists? Not “where can we insert a tool” — the process redrawn, and the roles and operating changes that have to come with it.
You get: a future-state process design, and what changes around it.
Build the case
The business case in your own numbers. The commercial baseline and the benefit measures. The high-level solution design. And commercial proof, where the critical part needs demonstrating.
You get: the evidence for the investment decision. The decision is yours.
Executive discovery
Detailed process analysis
Process redesign
Roles and operating changes
Quantified business case
Commercial proof — where required
High-level solution design
Baseline and benefit measures
The evidence for the investment decision.
Everything your board needs to decide, and the commercial brief your technology partner needs before detailed technical design begins.
Executive discovery findings
Current-state process analysis
Future-state process design
Roles and operating changes
Prioritised opportunity
Quantified business case
Commercial value baseline
Defined benefit measures
Commercial proof — where required
Edge cases and controls
High-level solution design
Executive decision pack
High-level solution design means the named blocks and how they connect: which platforms or tiers are involved, and what passes between them. Every block has a named owner. It is not detailed technical design, technical architecture, configuration, integration design or security design. Detailed technical ownership remains with your technology partner.
Commercial proof means a bounded demonstration of the critical proposition, sufficient to support the investment decision. It is not production software and it is not detailed technical design. It is not built for deployment and it is not handed over as a system. It is included where the critical part of the case needs demonstrating, not in every engagement. Where a technical proof of concept is needed, your technology partner builds it.
The case is quantified in your own numbers and stated with its assumptions. It is a modelled case until the benefits are measured against the baseline after go-live.
The method does not change. How much of the business we examine does.
A firm that knows where it wants to look is not buying the same engagement as one asking where AI belongs across the company. Same approach, same deliverables. A different amount of ground covered.
Small
One defined business area or problem. You already know where you want to concentrate — quoting, invoice processing, service enquiries, document-heavy client work.
Narrow and deep. Around four weeks.
Medium
Several connected business areas. Sales, marketing and service together. Or procurement, supply chain and finance. The opportunity crosses boundaries, so examining one part alone would miss it.
Broader, with depth where the case is strongest. Around six weeks, scoped before we start.
Large
The major functions across the company. For boards asking where AI should be used across the business, and in what order.
Company-wide discovery, then detailed work on what warrants it. Around eight weeks. You get a prioritised portfolio rather than a single case.
Small looks deeply at one part of the business. Medium covers several connected areas. Large looks across the company.
Small · 7–9 interviews
Your leadership team, and the people who do the work in that area.
Medium · 12–16 interviews
The same, widened across the connected areas.
Large · 20–28 interviews
The same again, widened across the major functions.
Individual conversations, weighted roughly one third to the leadership team and two thirds to the people who do the work. Because the later work depends on discovery, interview volume scales with the scope rather than staying fixed.
How we size it
One question: how much of the business do you want us to examine? You do not need to diagnose your own processes or work out how many days it takes. That is our job, and we do it in the conversation.
If it is genuinely complex
Multiple countries, divisions, sites or operating companies, with materially different processes between them — we confirm the scope before quoting rather than guessing. Simple requirement, standard product. Complex requirement, we scope it.
What Large does not mean: every process in the company mapped and redesigned. That is a different piece of work and it is priced separately. Large means we look across the major functions, then concentrate the detailed work where the commercial case justifies it.
What this engagement includes — and where it stops.
Where commercial proof is required, it is a commercial proof. It is there to answer one question: is this worth investing in? It runs in your context, with your kind of data, and it is bounded to what the decision needs.
It is not a production system. It is not detailed technical design, and it is not built to be deployed as it stands. The commercial brief and the high-level solution design are turned into detailed technical design and a delivery plan. That remains your technology partner’s responsibility.
Size does not change that boundary. A larger engagement examines more of the business. It does not begin the implementation.
Production-grade build. Detailed technical design. Technical solution architecture. Configuration, integration or security work. Technical testing. Deployment. Managed technical services.
All of that sits with your chosen technology partner. We also do not establish or run the ongoing value-tracking framework in this engagement. That is AI Value Realisation.
Governance, risk, privacy, security and responsible AI requirements are addressed where the work requires them. Formalus defines the business requirements and controls. Your technology partner owns the detailed technical controls and implementation. This is a cross-cutting capability, not another stage in the service progression.
Your partner starts with a clear commercial brief.
The commercial case is clear before detailed technical design begins.
The commercial and technical responsibilities are different, and both need to be clear. We work alongside your existing technology partner rather than replacing them.
The measurement starts before the build does.
Once the board approves the case, the baseline and the benefit measures pass into AI Value Realisation. It confirms them before implementation changes the business, then tracks them through the build and after go-live.
AI Value Realisation is not a stage that begins at handover. The baseline is established in this engagement, approved with the case, and confirmed before anything changes. That is why the last two bands overlap. Formalus does not own the build, and does not disappear at technical handover where AI Value Realisation is engaged.
AI Value Realisation is charged separately at £5,000 a month unless separately scoped. See value realisation →
How existing Microsoft capability may fit.
Where Microsoft capability is already in the estate, the engagement considers whether any of it is relevant to the redesigned process.
Microsoft 365 Copilot
May be relevant where the redesigned work needs assistance inside Microsoft 365. The business need comes first.
Copilot Studio and agents
May be relevant where defined parts of the redesigned process can be handled by an agent.
Power Platform and Dynamics 365
May be relevant where the workflow itself has to change alongside the roles and operating changes.
Azure and your data
May be relevant where the data has to be right before anything downstream can be trusted.
We do not sell software, licences or implementation. This engagement works out what the business needs. Your technology partner decides and implements the detailed technical solution, on whatever platform fits. Nothing here depends on your estate being Microsoft.
Know what should change before you approve the build.
The normal route starts with the complimentary AI Opportunity Assessment, followed by the AI Business Envisioning Workshop where needed. Start there, and we will both know whether this engagement is warranted.
Book a complimentary AI Opportunity Assessment