I was in a meeting last month with the MD of a manufacturing company in Lichfield. Good bloke. Runs a tight operation, about 45 staff. He said something that stuck with me.
"I keep hearing about AI but I don't even know what I'd ask for. It's like knowing you need a specialist but not knowing what kind of specialist."
Fair enough. If you've never hired anyone for anything tech-related, the whole thing sounds vague. AI consultant. What does that even mean? Do you turn up with a laptop and make my business smarter somehow? Do you install something?
Let me walk you through it. Plain English. No jargon.
Think of it like a survey
You know when you're thinking about extending your house, and the first thing you do is get a surveyor in? They look at the structure, tell you what's possible, what'll cost what, and where the problems might be.
An AI consultant does the same thing, but for your business operations.
I come in and look at how your business actually runs day to day. Not the org chart. Not the strategy document. The actual work. Who does what, how long it takes, where the bottlenecks are, what tasks make people groan.
Then I tell you which of those tasks AI can help with, which ones it can't, and roughly what it would cost to set up.
That's it. That's the first step. No commitment to buy anything else. Just an honest look at where you are and what's possible.
What happens during an assessment
Practically speaking, here's what two weeks looks like.
First few days: I talk to your people. Not a big formal process. I sit down with the office manager, the accounts person, the ops team, whoever's doing the day-to-day work. I ask them what takes the longest, what's the most repetitive, what they'd automate if they could wave a magic wand.
This bit matters more than anything else. Your team knows where the time goes. They've just never had anyone ask them about it with a view to actually fixing it.
Middle of week one: I look at your systems. What software do you use? How does information move between people? Where are the spreadsheets? (There are always spreadsheets.) I'm not judging your setup. I'm mapping it. Working out what AI can connect to and what it can read.
Week two: I work out the opportunities. This is where I match what AI can actually do against the specific problems in your business. Not theoretical stuff. Specific things like "your accounts team spends 8 hours a week on invoice processing, AI can cut that to 2 hours, it'll cost about £4k to set up."
End of week two: you get a report. Not a 50-page document. A clear summary. Here's what we found. Here's what AI can do for you. Here's what it'll cost. Here's what you'll save. Here's what I'd do first if I were you.
Then you decide. No pressure.
What happens next (if you want it to)
If the assessment shows real savings and you want to go ahead, the next step is setting it up. That means configuring the AI tools, connecting them to your systems, testing them with real data, and making sure your team knows how to use them.
This usually takes 4 to 8 weeks depending on how many things you're tackling. I do the technical setup. Your team doesn't need to learn anything complicated. When it's done, the AI just works alongside their existing routine.
I also stick around for a bit after to make sure everything's running properly. If something's not quite right, I fix it. If your team has questions, I answer them.
What it costs
I'll be upfront because nobody else seems to be. The assessment costs from £3k. That covers the two weeks of my time looking at your business and producing the report.
If you go ahead with setting up AI after that, it's usually £5k to £15k depending on what needs doing. A simple setup for one area of the business is at the lower end. Multiple areas with more complexity is at the higher end.
In most cases, the savings pay for the cost within 6 months. Sometimes faster. If the maths doesn't work, I'll tell you during the assessment. I'd rather be honest than take your money for something that won't deliver.
Who this is for
Basically any business with more than about 10 office-based staff that's doing things manually which could be automated. That includes accountancy firms, recruitment agencies, manufacturers, logistics companies, construction firms, professional services. If your team is spending hours on admin that feels like it should be faster, it probably should be.
You don't need to be technical. You don't need to understand AI. You don't need to know what you want before we start. That's my job to figure out.
I'm based in Burton on Trent and I work with businesses across the Midlands. If you want to find out what an AI readiness assessment looks like for your business specifically, drop me a message. No sales pitch. Just a conversation about whether it makes sense.