An AI plan that says what to do, and what to leave alone.
For leadership teams being asked "what's our AI strategy?" without a straight answer. We examine how your business actually runs, model each opportunity against what happens if you do nothing, and give you a sequenced roadmap with the economics and risks spelt out. You get a decision, not a slide deck of possibilities.
Signs you need this
If two or more of these sound familiar, there's likely time and money to recover.
The board is asking, nobody owns it
Directors want an AI position and the question has landed with whoever is most enthusiastic. Without an owner and a method, you get scattered pilots and no business case.
Vendors are setting your agenda
If AI is arriving through vendor upsells and per-seat add-ons, your priorities are being set by someone else's sales plan. You end up buying features because they are offered, not because they fit.
You can't say where the hours go
Leaders sense admin is eating capacity but can't point to which roles, which tasks or what it costs. No investment case survives a finance review on that basis.
Pilots without a scoreboard
Teams have tried tools, but nobody set a baseline or a measure. A year on, you can't tell whether anything worked or what to fund next.
What changes for the business
Money goes to the highest-value work first
Each opportunity is ranked by value, effort, risk and dependency, so early projects fund or de-risk the later ones. Capital and management attention go where the return is clearest.
Numbers your finance team can test
Every estimate carries a confidence label: measured, modelled, estimated, inferred or qualitative. Your CFO can see which figures are solid and which need validating before money is committed.
The cost of doing nothing, made visible
We model the current state, the likely future if nothing changes, and the improved state. Inaction stops looking free once rising admin load or licence costs sit on the same page as the investment.
Fewer tools, not more
The nine moves include Remove, Improve and Leave alone, not just Build and Buy. Capacity is often found by retiring overlapping software or fixing a process before anything new is purchased.
One view across the leadership team
Interviews and workshops cover operations, sales, marketing, finance and IT, so the roadmap reflects the whole business rather than one department's wish list. Decisions move faster when everyone has seen the same evidence.
A plan you can deliver with anyone
The roadmap specifies requirements and success measures, not a preferred vendor. You keep control over who delivers each item, including your own team.
What we build
Board-level readout
A short summary of where the value is, what to do first and what it is likely to be worth, written for directors rather than technologists.
Prioritised opportunity portfolio
Every opportunity found, the move it resolves to (Build, Buy, Improve, Integrate, Automate, Remove, Change, Train or Leave alone) and where it ranks.
Economics for each opportunity
Current state, do-nothing baseline and improved state for each item, with every assumption listed and every estimate labelled by confidence.
Now/Next/Later roadmap
Sequenced initiatives with dependencies, owners and indicative effort, including the data or process fixes that have to come first.
Risk and readiness view
Data quality, privacy, security and change readiness for each initiative, with the governance it needs before launch.
Recommended first moves
Two or three specific actions you can start within weeks, with success measures agreed up front.
Technology we work with
- Microsoft 365 and Copilot
- Google Workspace and Gemini
- OpenAI models
- Anthropic Claude models
- Salesforce, HubSpot and HighLevel
- Xero
- Zapier and Make
- Power BI and Looker Studio
How it runs
Timings are indicative and depend on your systems, data and approvals.
Frame
We agree commercial goals, constraints and scope with leadership, and request inputs such as software invoices, team structure and work volumes.
1 week (indicative)
Examine
Interviews, workflow walk-throughs and system reviews across the nine lenses, from strategy and operations to workforce capability, customer experience and risk.
2 to 3 weeks (indicative)
Model
Opportunities are sized three ways, labelled by confidence, resolved to one of nine moves and ranked.
1 to 2 weeks (indicative)
Decide
We present the readout and roadmap, test it against your priorities, and agree the first moves and how each will be measured.
1 week (indicative)
Worked example
Engineering manufacturer: faster quotes and a CRM built around distributors
An illustrative $25M engineering manufacturer relies on two senior estimators for every quote, keeps distributor relationships in inboxes and spreadsheets, and pays for CRM seats nobody uses. The system captures RFQs in a structured way, uses AI to turn them into quote-ready briefs, prices routine work with encoded rules, and puts accounts, quotes and margin in one CRM connected to the ERP.
- RFQ address, web form and distributor uploads
- AI extraction into a quote-ready brief
- Person checks the brief
- Quoting tool with pricing rules
- Estimator approval where required
- CRM record for the account or distributor
- ERP job, costing and invoice
- Pipeline and margin dashboard
Guardrails, fit and measurement
Guardrails we apply
- Every estimate is labelled measured, modelled, estimated, inferred or qualitative, and the assumptions behind it are listed in full.
- We may recommend products from other providers, or doing nothing, and we say so in writing.
- Business data you share is used only for the Diagnostic and analysed on business-grade services, never public AI tools.
- Risk, privacy and change readiness are a lens of their own, not a paragraph in the appendix.
Not the right fit if
- You have already chosen a product and want the decision endorsed. We will test it honestly; if you only need implementation, a fixed-scope discovery is the better start.
- You need an AI strategy document for a grant or tender next week. The Diagnostic relies on interviews and data, and takes weeks, not days.
- Your business is small with simple processes. Our online AI readiness assessment and a single workshop will give you most of the value.
What we measure
- Share of roadmap items started within 90 days of the readout
- Capacity released by each initiative against its modelled estimate
- Estimates upgraded from estimated to measured as pilots report
- Software spend retired or avoided against the plan
- Time from decision to first working pilot
Pricing
The Altitude Diagnostic is a paid engagement scoped to your organisation, and AI work that follows is scoped individually, so we don't publish project prices.
Questions, answered.
What does an AI strategy engagement cost?
The Altitude Diagnostic is a paid engagement scoped to the size and complexity of your business, and we confirm the fee in writing before we start. We don't publish a price range because a 40-person single-site business and a multi-site group need very different depth.
How long does it take?
We plan for 5 to 7 weeks for a single business with one leadership team. Multi-site or multi-brand groups take longer because there are more workflows to see. The timeline is fixed in the scope before work begins.
Do you need access to our systems and data?
Exports and read-only views help: software invoices, CRM reports, job or enquiry volumes and team structure. We don't need production access, and anything sensitive is classified before it is analysed. Where data isn't available, we say so and label the estimate accordingly.
What if the answer is that we shouldn't do much with AI yet?
Then that is the answer. Leave alone is one of the nine moves, and sometimes the first priority is fixing data, a process or a platform before AI will pay back. You still leave with a sequenced plan for getting ready.
Won't you just recommend building something with you?
No. We are not looking for things to build. A recommendation can be a product you buy, a feature you already own, a training program or a process change, and the roadmap is written so any capable provider could deliver it.
Related services
- AI governance & implementationAI governance for Australian businesses: a use policy, approved tools, data rules and human oversight, informed by OAIC and National AI Centre guidance.
- Business process automationAutomate intake, quoting, follow-up, onboarding and reporting across the systems you already use. Measured in hours released, with people on exceptions.
- AI assistants & knowledge systemsRole-specific AI assistants that answer from your own documents, cite the source and respect permissions. Built on Microsoft 365, Google or a custom stack.
- Platform replacementThinking of leaving Salesforce, HubSpot or GoHighLevel? Compare 3 to 5 year cost of ownership, then migrate in stages with parallel running and training.
Where this matters most
Talk to us about the Diagnostic
A conversation with us about your goals and whether the Altitude Diagnostic is the right first step.