Home Programs Cost Takeout & Productivity
Program
Lower the cost to serve — with AI working inside your processes
We redesign finance, supply chain, customer and document-heavy workflows so AI assistants and agents handle routine work, and your people approve what matters.
Last reviewed: 29 September 2026
20–40{92aa103281e6849eb31fdffc4c8cf6f7eb32fdab66a5738451c3768cacd59970}
less manual effort in targeted processes
Days → hours
cycle time for document-heavy steps
One quarter
to first measurable savings
Typical target ranges, agreed at baseline.
Volume grows. So does the cost of handling it.
Orders, invoices, supplier emails and service requests still move through inboxes, spreadsheets and re-keying into ERP and CRM. Each new customer or market adds people to the process rather than capacity to the system. Earlier automation helped at the edges, but rules-based bots break whenever a format or process changes — and exceptions still land on someone’s desk.
- Headcount rising in step with transaction volume
- Manual handoffs between ERP, email and spreadsheets
- Automation built in silos that breaks on change
AI now handles the variability that rules could not. The question is where it pays back first.
Why automation programs underdeliver
| Where it stalls | What it costs | Our answer |
|---|---|---|
| Task-level bots | Brittle automations and high maintenance | Process-level redesign, with AI handling the exceptions |
| IT-led business case | No CFO sponsor, savings never banked | A finance-owned baseline and monthly savings tracking |
| No exception design | Teams distrust automation and work around it | Clear human checkpoints and escalation paths |
Processes where we typically start
| Process | Business KPI | Where it runs |
|---|---|---|
| Order intake and validation | Order cycle time, order errors | SAP, email, Power Automate |
| Invoice, PO and goods-receipt matching | Touchless rate, days payable accuracy | SAP, AP inbox |
| Collections prioritisation | Days sales outstanding | ERP, CRM |
| Supplier communication and PO follow-up | On-time delivery, buyer hours | ERP, Microsoft 365 |
| Service request triage and response drafting | First response time, cost per case | Salesforce, Microsoft 365 |
| Contract and document data extraction | Hours per document, error rate | Document stores, ERP |
How the program runs
1
Process & Cost Baseline
3–4 weeks
We measure volumes, handling times, error rates and cost per transaction for candidate processes, with finance.
2
Redesign & Controls
2–3 weeks
We redesign the process end to end and define approvals, thresholds and segregation of duties.
3
Build & Integrate
6–10 weeks per wave
AI extraction, validation and agents inside your ERP, CRM and productivity tools.
4
Adopt & Bank Savings
ongoing
Role changes, training and monthly savings reports signed off by finance.
5
Run & Improve
Monitoring and expansion, in-house or through our managed services.
Automation your auditors will accept
- Segregation of duties preserved for every automated step
- Approval thresholds for postings, payments and customer commitments
- Full audit trail of AI-assisted entries and decisions
- Exception queues with named owners and service levels
- Accuracy thresholds tested before release and monitored in production
Find out which of your processes pays back first.
See it in practice
Blueprint
AI-assisted order-to-cash for distributor-heavy manufacturers
Moving distributor orders from email and spreadsheets into SAP in hours, with an exception queue for the cases that need people.
View the blueprint
How to start and how it grows
1
AI Value Diagnostic (process)
3–4 weeks
Baselines and a ranked savings case for five to eight processes.
2
Wave 1
3–4 months
Two or three processes in production, savings tracked monthly.
3
Scale
Further processes, or a move into the Enterprise AI Transformation Program.
Commercial options: fixed-fee diagnostic · milestone-based delivery · optional shared-savings component.
Questions about cost takeout with AI
Which processes pay back fastest?
High-volume, rules-heavy processes with variable inputs — order intake, invoice matching, supplier follow-up and service triage. They combine clear baselines with many small decisions AI can now handle, and the savings are easy for finance to verify.
Will this replace our existing RPA?
Not necessarily. Stable bots can keep running. We typically redesign the process around them and use AI for unstructured inputs and exceptions, which is where rules-based bots break most often.
How are savings verified?
Finance agrees the baseline and the method before build. We then report monthly on volumes, handling time, error rates and cost per transaction, and finance signs off realised savings.
What happens to the people whose work changes?
We plan role changes with you from the start. Most clients redeploy capacity to higher-value work or absorb growth without hiring. We provide training and change support as part of the program.
Show us one process. We’ll show you the savings case.
- 30 minutes with a senior lead
- No sales script — a working conversation
- A clear view of where AI can pay back first