On discovery, back offices, and where AI actually helps.
We don’t publish often — only when there’s something concrete to say. What’s here tends to cluster around a few threads: finding out what to build before anyone writes code, putting AI inside real workflows (inboxes, order desks, quotes), connecting the systems you already pay for, and the build-or-buy calls operators face every month. Written for people who run the work, not for developers chasing trends.
Showing 1–6 of 8 in strategy
Build vs buy: the question we get asked the most
After 20 years of these conversations, here's the honest framework we use to help businesses decide whether to build something bespoke or live with off-the-shelf software.
Read postAI in customer services: a draft on every reply
How AI changes the shape of a customer-services inbox — reading inbound messages, looking up the customer and order across your systems, and putting a draft reply in front of a person who still presses send.
Read postAI for document understanding: POs in, structured data out
Purchase orders, supplier price lists, delivery notes — the documents your back office still re-types by hand. How AI plus a few well-chosen MCP lookups turns the order desk from a typing job into a judgement job, with humans on the exceptions.
Read postAI for the back office: drafting quotes from your own data
The outbound mirror to the two inbound AI posts. How AI assembles a draft quote from your own data — customer history, contracted pricing, stock, lead times — and lands it on the salesperson's desk. They set the margin and press send. With a look at where this naturally leads next: customer and quote portals.
Read postA business owner's guide to APIs
What an API actually is, in plain English — and the three places they quietly change a business: how customers talk to you, how you talk to your suppliers, and how your own systems start talking to each other.
Read postCustomer & quote portals: where customers do the work themselves
The natural follow-on to the AI-drafted quotes post. What a portal actually is, where AI sits inside it, and the awkward bits nobody mentions until you're three months in — pricing visibility, the self-service/human boundary, and how to roll one out without upsetting customers who love email.
Read postLet’s talk about your back office
Start with a free 30-minute discovery call. No slides, no sales pitch; just a real conversation about where your business is and where it could be.