Approach

Change the work beforeyou change the technology.

Most AI spending disappoints for one reason: technology without transformation. The tools get switched on and the work never changes. This page sets out what we own, where your technology partner takes over, and how the two fit together.

The belief underneath all of it

AI doesn’t create value. Better ways of working do. AI simply speeds them up.

Put more precisely, for the people who have to sign the cheque: technology capability does not decide where AI creates value. The economics and the work of the business do.

The order we work in

Six steps, and the order matters more than any of them.

Almost every disappointing AI programme did these in a different order.

01

Understand how the business makes money

Where value is created and captured in a firm like yours, and which processes carry it.

02

Find where AI changes the economics

Not where AI is possible. Where it moves revenue, margin, cost, capacity, cycle time, quality or risk.

03

Redesign the work

What people do, what agents do, and what changes for the team doing the job.

04

Prove the case

Demonstrate the biggest opportunity in your own context, in front of the board, before the money is committed.

05

Let the technology partner build it

Your Microsoft partner or MSP delivers against a specification that has already been agreed commercially.

06

Measure and steer the value

Track what the investment actually returns against the case, and act when it drifts.

How we look at an opportunity

Six lenses. Not six workshops.

Six questions asked of the same thing. An opportunity that looks strong through one lens and weak through another is the most useful conversation a leadership team can have.

01

Economics and customer

How the business makes money, who pays, and which numbers decide the year.

02

Strategy

Where the business is going, and what it has decided not to do.

03

Process and operating model

How the work is done, who does what, and how performance is reviewed and decided.

04

People and capability

Who does the work, what changes for them, and whether the organisation can absorb it.

05

Systems and controls

What is already owned, what it can do, and what governs its use.

06

Data

Whether it exists, can be trusted, can be reached, is owned, and should be seen.

Depth

What we bring. What we earn.

Each stage goes one layer deeper than the last. Nothing is claimed before it is known.

What we bring

The economics of your sector, its value chain, and the high-level processes that carry the money. Built from sector standards, published research, and interviews with people who run these businesses.

Present from the first forty-five minutes

What we test with you

How that work is typically done in firms of your type. We present it to be corrected, never asserted. Where you run it differently, that difference is the finding.

The Executive AI Briefing

What we earn inside your business

How the work actually runs here — the variants, the exceptions and the workarounds nobody wrote down. That needs access, and it is what the Accelerator buys.

The AI Accelerator

Beyond that

Detailed technical design and build. Your technology partner’s work, not ours.

Your chosen partner
The commercial boundary

Twelve rows. One clean division.

AI transformation needs two different capabilities. One is commercial. One is technical. Firms get into trouble when they buy one and assume it covered both. Here is exactly where the line sits.

Formalus — commercial transformation and value
Industry economics
Value chain analysis
Executive discovery
AI opportunity identification
Business process redesign
Operating model redesign
Commercial business case
Proof of commercial concept
Commercial implementation assurance
Value measurement
Value optimisation
Portfolio allocation
Your technology partner — implementation and operation
Technical architecture
Product and platform selection
Configuration
Development
Integration
Security
Technical testing
Deployment
Technical project and programme management
Technical operations
Technical remediation
Managed services

We do not build or deploy production technology. We establish what should change, why it should change and what it should be worth — then measure whether the expected value is being realised.

Where this meets your Microsoft estate

You have probably already bought most of what you need.

Most mid-market firms we meet are already paying for the capability. What is missing is the decision about where to point it, and the redesign that makes it worth something.

Microsoft 365 Copilot

Useful where the work itself is redesigned around it. Otherwise it speeds up the same meetings and the same emails.

Copilot Studio and agents

Where a defined process can be handed over in part. The value comes from the process design, not the agent.

Power Platform and Dynamics 365

Where the operating model changes and the workflow has to change with it.

Azure and your data estate

Where the data has to be ready before anything downstream can be trusted.

We do not sell, resell or implement any of these. We work out which of them your business case actually needs, and hand a clear specification to the partner who does.

The four stages

Assess. Align. Accelerate. Orchestrate.

Each one answers a different question, and each one removes a different risk.

Assess Where might AI create value here?

Forty-five minutes with your leadership team, and a straight recommendation either way.

Complimentary
Align Where should we act first?

One day, on site. Your leadership team leaves with one agreed view and a short list.

£2,500
Accelerate What changes, what is it worth, can we prove it?

Four to eight weeks. The work redesigned, the case built, the critical piece demonstrated.

From £15,000
Orchestrate Are we realising what the board approved?

Assurance through the build, then measurement of the return afterwards.

£5,000 a month
Technical implementation sits between Accelerate and Orchestrate — delivered by your chosen partner.
What happens next

You commit to the next step, not the whole journey.

Here is the full path, and who owns which part of it.

TodayWhere you areLicences bought. Work unchanged.
AssessmentFree · 45 minIs this worth exploring?
Briefing£2,500 · one dayWhere do we act first?
AcceleratorFrom £15,000Redesigned and proven.
ImplementationYour chosen partnerBuilt to an agreed specification.
Realised valueMeasured, not claimedAnd the next opportunity.

Orchestration starts during the build, not after it. That overlap is why the commercial intent survives delivery.

How opportunities get ranked

Two questions. Never one score.

Almost every AI readiness tool gives you a single percentage. That is how the most valuable opportunity in a business gets quietly ranked below something easy and trivial.

How much money moves

Scored against a number on your own management accounts. Not against effort saved.

How realistic it is to build

Given the process, the data, and the estate and partner you already have.

Do this first

High value, realistic. Usually only one or two.

The prize, blocked

High value, hard. Name the dependency, cost it, sequence it. Do not discard it.

Easy and trivial

Where most firms have already started. And why they have seen no return.

Neither

Declined explicitly, with the reason recorded.

We plot them separately and your executive team decides. That is their decision, not ours.

One exception: where getting it wrong carries regulatory, clinical or safety consequences, that stops an opportunity regardless of its value — until the governance around it has been designed.

How much we actually know

Every finding carries its evidence status.

You will always know whether something is a pattern we see in your sector, something your own people have confirmed, or something we have measured against a baseline.

Research-backedWe see this in your sector. Nobody has confirmed it in a business like yours yet.
Practitioner-validatedPeople who do this work, at other firms in your sector, have confirmed it.
Client-validatedYour own people have confirmed it, inside your business.
MeasuredCounted against a baseline taken before anything was built.

Each paid stage moves findings up the ladder. Only Value Orchestration reaches the top.

Who is accountable for what

Three parties. Three different responsibilities.

Worth being blunt about this, because “value orchestration” could easily be misread as us promising you a financial outcome. We don’t, and we couldn’t.

Formalus

The integrity of the commercial design, the measurement model, the evidence, spotting where value is slipping, and steering the decisions that follow.

Your management team

The business outcome. Acting on what the evidence shows, resourcing the change, and running the business.

Your technology partner

Technical delivery and operation — architecture, build, configuration, integration, security, deployment and support.

We govern the commercial design, measure the evidence, spot the variance and steer the decisions. Management owns the business outcome. The technology partner owns technical delivery.

What we never do

The list is short, and it is the point.

We do not sell technology

No software, no licences, no reselling. Nothing in our revenue depends on which platform you choose.

We do not build or run it

No development, no configuration, no integration, no managed service. Your partner keeps all of that, including the ongoing revenue.

We do not manage your technical programme

No sprint management, no technical architecture, no technical testing. We define the solution at block level and your partner engineers it. We govern commercial integrity, which is a different job.

The result: when we tell you an opportunity is not worth pursuing, there is no reason to doubt it.

Start with forty-five minutes.

A complimentary Executive AI Opportunity Assessment, and a straight recommendation either way — including “don’t invest”, if that is the honest answer.

Book a free assessment