AI Consulting Services: A Scoping Week Instead of a Strategy Deck

AI consulting services at GBCORP take the form of a scoping week: workshops with the people who run a process, a choice of the first step to automate, a set of real examples with their correct answers, a written scope, screens where a screen is needed, and a fixed quotation with dates. The week is priced on its own and its documents belong to the business whether or not GBCORP builds. It is consulting that ends in something a team can start on Monday.

What the week produces

Why not a strategy deck

A deck lists opportunities. A business needs one step that works, measured, and then the next. The scoping week picks that step from evidence, in the room with the people who will review its outputs, and prices it. A second scoping week picks the second step once the first is running. This is slower to promise and faster to deliver.

Picking the first process

Volume: something that happens hundreds of times a month. A clear right answer: an invoice total is right or wrong; a marketing tagline is a matter of taste. A low cost of error: a misfiled document is recoverable; a wrong payment is not. The people who do the work today in the room, because they know the exceptions. The week produces a short list and a choice, with reasons.

What the business gets if it stops there

The process map, the evaluation set and the scope, in its own name, usable with any builder. The evaluation set is the valuable part: it lets any team, including an internal one, test any model and know whether it works. GBCORP’s quotation is one option among those the business can then compare.

Checklist before booking a scoping week

• The two or three processes that consume the most repeated effort.
• The people who run them, available for two half-day workshops.
• Access to real examples: documents, messages, records.
• The systems those processes live in, and who administers them.
• The number the business would like to move.
• A decision-maker for the quotation at the end of the week.

The numbers to expect

One week, priced on its own. Two workshops, one review of examples, one presentation of the scope and quotation. A first release, if commissioned, in three to eight weeks at a fixed price. Customised or more complex functionality is quoted separately before any work starts.

A worked example

A distribution business asks for AI consulting because a competitor announced an assistant. The scoping week maps five processes and finds the assistant is the fourth most valuable: the first is reading supplier invoices, which four people do all day. Two hundred invoices are collected with their correct values, a scope is written for an extraction step with review, and a fixed price is quoted. The assistant is listed as a later step with its reasons. The business builds the invoice step first, sees the hours saved by week six, and commissions the assistant in the second quarter from evidence rather than from a competitor’s announcement.

What a good scope says no to

The second language, the second process, the integration that can wait, the dashboard nobody asked for. A scope that lists everything mentioned in the workshops is a wish list, and it is why AI projects run long. The scoping week writes down what the first release does not do, with a reason for each, so the business can add it later as a release rather than argue about it in week eight.

The evaluation set as an asset

Fifty to two hundred real examples with their correct answers is the most valuable document the week produces. It lets any team test any model and know whether it works. It grows from the review screen once the step is live. It is stored in the business’s own project, in a plain format, and it belongs to the business whatever it decides to do next.

Who should attend

The people who run the process today, because they know the exceptions. The person who administers the systems it lives in. A decision-maker for the quotation. Two half-day workshops, on video or in the room, and a short review of the examples between them. Senior time is needed for one hour on the last day.

What GBCORP will not recommend

A model where a rule does the job. Removing the review step to make a demonstration look better. A step with a subjective right answer as the first project. Sending unmasked sensitive data to a provider. A second process before the first is measured. Each refusal is written into the scope with its reason.

Ownership of the documents

The process map, the evaluation set, the scope and the quotation are the business’s, delivered in plain formats, usable with any builder. The examples stay in the business’s own project. No credentials are retained by GBCORP after the week unless a build is commissioned.

Questions we hear first

Is the scoping week only for AI?

It is the same week GBCORP uses for any custom software; for AI it adds the evaluation set.

Can it be done remotely?

Yes. Workshops run on video with shared screens; GBCORP works this way across 17 countries on 4 continents.

What if you find AI is not the answer?

The week says so, with reasons, and often proposes a rule or a configuration that does the job without a model.

Do we have to build with GBCORP afterwards?

No. The documents are yours; the quotation is an option.

Where to start

The GBCORP AI Development and Automation product is the priced starting point; the GBCORP AI development and machine learning hub sets out the method. For adding a step to existing software, read AI integration services explained.

GBCORP operates across 17 countries on 4 continents through six pillars: AI & IT, Innovation, Sustainability, Infrastructure, Premium Business, and EV's & Solutions.