EthosPowerAIWrite the five-year plan first
In one week you get the first written version of your five-year plan, the customer problem to solve first, a map of the data you can use and a fixed quote for a prototype. The price is fixed before the week starts, between NZ$2,500 and NZ$7,500. Sometimes my advice is to change nothing yet.
Book a 30-minute call“Our customers arrive with a quote their AI wrote.”
Their AI has sized the job, named a make and model and listed your competitors. You are left to compete on price. Using AI to quote faster does not change that.
Advisory starts one step earlier. What will your customers need from you in five years, and what can you give them that their AI cannot? The answer decides which tool to build, or whether to build one at all. The full argument is on the approach page.
Sound familiar?
- •Customers arrive with a bill of materials and your competitors' names.
- •You are running pilots, such as a chatbot or a Copilot licence, and none has changed what you sell.
- •A failed pilot has already cost budget and goodwill.
- •You want someone who will tell you when not to use AI.
What you get
A first five-year plan
Written with your managers in the Discovery week, and yours to develop afterwards. It says what your customers will still pay you for when their own AI does the sizing, and which stages of the equipment's life you will look after.
The problem to solve first
The recurring cost in your customers' core work to tackle first, and why that one comes before the others.
A data map
Which test results, logs and field records you and your customers hold, where they are kept, and who must agree before anyone uses them.
A costed first build
Scope, price and a go or no-go recommendation for the prototype. If the answer is “don't build it”, I say so.
How it works
The plan and the decisions are yours. I ask the questions, do the research and write it down.
I listen
I talk with the people who manage your customer relationships, and I ask where the margin has gone.
I investigate
I read quotes, service records and test data, and I follow the processes around them to see how the work is really done.
I analyse
I work out where your customers' AI already does your job, and where it cannot.
I recommend
You get a written plan in plain English and a working session to go through it.
I make the case
If it helps, I present the plan to your board. An outsider can sometimes say what an internal team cannot.
I help implement
If you want, I stay on to build the first tool. Delivery is priced separately.
What I won't do
Sell you AI you don't need
If the right answer is a simpler fix, or no AI at all, I will recommend that.
Invent problems
I work on real problems. I do not invent ones that justify a longer engagement.
Hand you off
You work with me directly. I say what I do not know, and I bring in a specialist when the work needs one.
Pricing
Discovery
The first version of your five-year plan, the problem to solve first, a map of the data you can use and a fixed quote for the prototype. It takes one week, at a price agreed before it starts.
All prices in USD (converted from NZD), exclusive of GST. The price is fixed before the work starts. I do not bill by the hour.
What this looks like in practice
From my own work
A company that designs and makes battery chargers wanted its staff and distributors in every Australian state to check stock, place orders and track them without phoning head office. I began by working out where AI and a well-configured ERP system would pay off, and where they would not. Over about six months I customised ERPNext to fit the firm's own stock, pricing and distributor rules, so the business did not have to change to suit the software. Distributors got self-service ordering and stock lookup from anywhere, and the system drafts purchase orders for a person to approve. It uses the same parts as my Autonomous Supply Chain and Mission Control Field Agent solutions.
None of this work replaces your staff. The plan directs them to the work that your customers' AI cannot do.
Start the five-year plan
Tell me who your customers are, and what their AI told them before they called you. The first call is free, and I will not pitch.