Professional Services
Consultancies, agencies and engineering firms that sell people's time against scope, milestones and margins.
01 · The operating chain
The professional services operating chain
Each demonstration sits at a point in this chain where a real business loses information, margin or time. The chain is how we read a business; the demonstrations are how we prove we can act on it.
01
Sell
1 demonstration
02
Scope
1 demonstration
03
Resource
1 demonstration
04
Deliver
3 demonstrations
05
Bill
2 demonstrations
06
Retain
1 demonstration
Coverage map · demonstrations by operating area
| Area | Working demonstrations | Count |
|---|---|---|
| Sell | Delivery Capacity & Commitment Guard | 1 |
| Scope | Scope & Commercial Control | 1 |
| Resource | Delivery Capacity & Commitment Guard | 1 |
| Deliver | Project Margin Leakage Investigator · Scope & Commercial Control · Client Delivery Risk Investigator | 3 |
| Bill | Project Margin Leakage Investigator · Billing & Revenue Assurance | 2 |
| Retain | Client Delivery Risk Investigator | 1 |
A demonstration shows understanding of an operating area on a fictional business. It is not a record of client work.
02 · Where it breaks down
Where professional services breaks down
- 01Margin lost to commitments nobody priced
- 02Selling delivery capacity that the roster does not have
- 03Promises made in meetings that never reach the contract
03 · Working demonstrations · 5
Working demonstrations
scope margin
Project Margin Leakage Investigator
A synthetic consultancy engagement that reports green while its margin slips. The system reconstructs hours and cost from timesheets, rates, the signed SOW, change orders and invoices; traces every piece of unscoped work to the meeting note or email it came from; builds the margin bridge; and puts a commercial exception, an evidence package and a draft change request in front of the engagement lead. Nothing is sent by the system.
Runs on a generated firm (Hollis Grey Partners, fictional) and client. Every person, timesheet, email and figure is synthetic and labelled as such in the interface.
delivery capacity
Delivery Capacity & Commitment Guard
An attractive opportunity with a warm sponsor and a requested start date. The system reconstructs real delivery capacity week by week from named people, skills, expertise, leave and existing allocations, names the conflicts, derives options by re-running the same engine under one change each, rules others out with reasons, and reserves the chosen capacity under the authority it needs.
Runs on a generated firm (Hollis Grey Partners, fictional). Every person, project, allocation and opportunity is synthetic and labelled as such in the interface. No AI is used.
scope control
Scope & Commercial Control
After a good client call, seven expectations were voiced. The system compares each logged commitment with the clause it was raised against, approved change orders and the backlog, classifies it, estimates the new ones from the firm's own rules at the rate card, offers an optional AI reading of the transcript with line citations, and lets the engagement owner decide item by item: absorb, trade, price, decline or investigate.
Runs on a generated firm (Hollis Grey Partners, fictional) and client. Every clause, transcript line, email, estimate and figure is synthetic and labelled as such in the interface.
billing entitlement
Billing & Revenue Assurance
A synthetic consultancy engagement, five invoices in and nobody complaining. The system applies each contract clause's rule to the approvals, timesheets, expenses and invoice lines on file: milestone tranches on acceptance, a capped support pool at the rate card, change orders on delivery, pre-approved receipted expenses, a monthly retainer. It finds the delivered, billable items that never reached an invoice, shows the categories of unbilled time the contract correctly excludes, and puts a billing exception, a support pack and a draft invoice adjustment in front of the engagement lead. Nothing is sent.
Runs on a generated firm (Hollis Grey Partners, fictional) and client. Every clause, approval, timesheet, expense and invoice is synthetic and labelled as such in the interface.
delivery risk
Client Delivery Risk Investigator
Which project that looks green is actually becoming dangerous? A synthetic consultancy portfolio where the status report colours each project from earned value, budget and defects. The system computes each project's critical path from its remaining tasks, dependencies, pending client decisions and specialist availability windows, measures slack in weeks against the committed milestone, and shows how each further week of an aging decision moves the finish. The green project has zero slack behind a 28-day-old decision and a two-week specialist window; the red project has a recovery plan and three weeks of buffer. Optional AI reading of the correspondence, with citations.
Runs on a generated firm (Hollis Grey Partners, fictional) with three synthetic projects. Every task, decision, person, window and email is synthetic and labelled as such in the interface.
These are ways of working, not products.
These demonstrations show how we approach a problem; they are not a list of pre-built answers. Your processes, systems, constraints and blind spots will be different. A Business Systems Discovery starts from how your business actually operates, finds where information and decisions break down, and recommends the right mix of AI, automation, integration, intelligent systems or plain process change.