How much does the advisory engagement cost?

Phases 01 to 03 run $10,000 to $25,000. A single-site business with one or two departments in scope sits at the lower end; a multi-site operation with several departments, regulated work or a lot of legacy tooling sits at the upper. Implementation and run are quoted separately, per roadmap item, once the roadmap exists.

How long does the process take?

The advisory phases typically take five to nine weeks in total — two to three weeks of discovery, two to four weeks of documentation, and one to two weeks to build the roadmap. Implementation is scoped per roadmap item after that, and the run phase continues as long as you want the systems maintained.

Do we have to commit to a full build up front?

No. The advisory engagement stands on its own and ends with an operational audit, process maps, an SOP library and a costed roadmap. Those documents are yours regardless of whether you build anything, and useful even if you take them to another firm.

Will the systems work with our existing tools?

Yes. A core part of implementation is integrating with the systems where your work already happens, so data flows end to end instead of being re-keyed between tools that don't talk to each other. The roadmap flags anything that genuinely needs replacing rather than integrating.

How we work

Diagnosis first. Then engineering.

Five phases. The first three are an advisory engagement you can commission on its own, and they produce assets you keep whether or not you build anything. The last two are where our own engineers take over — the point at which most consultancies hand you a roadmap and leave.

Phases 01–03 / Advisory

Understand it, document it, sequence it

A fixed-scope engagement. You end it owning an operational audit, a written SOP library, process maps and a costed roadmap — regardless of who does the building afterwards.

Typically 3 phases · 5–9 weeks

Phases 04–05 / Delivery

Build it, then keep it running

Our in-house engineers build against the documentation they helped produce — custom, integrated with the tools you already run, and monitored afterwards under one point of accountability.

2 phases · scoped per roadmap item

Phase by phase

What happens, and what it produces.

01/ Advisory

Discovery

Deliverable

Operational Audit

Typical duration

2–3 weeks

We start by watching the work happen rather than reading about it. That means time with the people actually running each process — not only the managers describing it — because the documented process and the real one are rarely the same. Every recurring workflow is traced end to end, including the workarounds nobody mentions in a kickoff meeting.

Includes

Interviews with the team performing each core process
End-to-end mapping of handoffs, approvals and exceptions
Time-and-cost analysis per process, ranked by annual burden
Inventory of current systems and where data is re-entered between them

02/ Advisory

Documentation

Deliverable

SOP Library & Process Maps

Typical duration

2–4 weeks

Most operational risk isn't technological, it's undocumented. When a process lives only in one person's head, it can't be delegated, audited, improved or automated. Writing it down is the step that makes everything after it possible — and it delivers value even if you stop here and build nothing.

Includes

A written SOP for each core process, in plain language
Visual process maps showing decision points and exception paths
Named ownership for every step
A register of the assumptions and edge cases the team works around

03/ Advisory

Roadmap

Deliverable

Implementation Roadmap

Typical duration

1–2 weeks

Not every manual process should be automated. Some are too low-volume to repay the build, some are about to change, and some depend on judgment that shouldn't be delegated to software. The roadmap is explicit about all three — a sequenced plan with costs and expected returns, and a clearly stated list of what we recommend leaving alone.

Includes

Prioritised sequence, ordered by return and dependency
Estimated build cost and expected time recovered per item
Build-versus-buy assessment for each recommendation
An explicit 'not worth automating' list, with the reasoning

04/ Delivery

Implementation

Deliverable

Working systems, documented

Typical duration

Scoped per roadmap item

This is where most consulting engagements end and a separate vendor relationship begins. Ours doesn't: the engineers who build the systems have read the audit and drawn the process maps. We build custom rather than forcing your operation to fit an off-the-shelf product, and we put human review where the stakes justify it.

Includes

Custom systems built against the documented process
Integration with the tools already in use, not replacements for them
Testing on real historical data, including the messy cases
Human-in-the-loop checkpoints wherever judgment or compliance applies
Handover documentation written for your team, not for us

05/ Delivery

Run

Deliverable

Monitoring & iteration

Typical duration

Ongoing

A system nobody maintains quietly stops being a system. Volumes change, upstream tools change their APIs, and edge cases surface that no one anticipated. We monitor what we've built, fix it when it drifts, and stay accountable for it — which is the difference between a project that was delivered and one that is still working two years later.

Includes

Monitoring and alerting on every system we've built
Iteration as volume and workflows change
A single named point of accountability
Periodic review against the original audit baseline

Investment

What the advisory engagement costs.

We publish the range because the alternative is a call spent establishing whether we're in the same universe. A single-site business with one or two departments in scope sits at the lower end. A multi-site operation, several departments, regulated work or a lot of legacy tooling sits at the upper.

Advisory engagement — phases 01–03$10K – $25K

What it includes

Operational audit of every recurring process in scope, costed and ranked
Process maps covering decision points, handoffs and exception paths
A written SOP library with named ownership per step
A sequenced implementation roadmap, including what we advise against building
Working sessions with your team throughout, and a findings presentation to leadership

What moves the number

01/ Headcount

We interview and observe the people actually doing the work. More people in the affected teams means more sessions and more variation to document.

02/ Departments in scope

Each department carries its own processes, handoffs and exceptions. Two is a very different piece of work from six.

03/ Sites and facilities

Multi-location operations almost always run the same process differently in each place. Each site has to be observed rather than assumed.

04/ Operational complexity

Regulated work, legacy systems and heavy exception handling all lengthen documentation, because the edge cases are the point rather than a footnote.

Implementation and run (phases 04–05) are quoted separately, per roadmap item, once the roadmap exists. There is no obligation to commission them, and the documents are yours either way.

Common questions

Before you commission anything.

Start here

Begin with the advisory engagement.

Three phases, a fixed scope, and four assets you keep. If the roadmap says build, our engineers are already briefed.

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