The CoterieLabs process
Diagnosis before prescription.
We don't recommend anything we haven't measured. Every engagement starts with a clear picture — mapped across the Five Bearings — of where AI can move the numbers in your specific business, before a dollar is committed to implementation.
Why the order matters
Most AI investments fail the same way — they skip the diagnostic.
They implement what sounds right — instead of what the data shows is right. The initiative makes sense on paper but doesn't move the metric that matters.
They can't prove the ROI — because there was no agreed baseline before implementation began. The improvement happened, but nobody can verify it.
The team doesn't adopt it — because change management was an afterthought, not a parallel track that ran from Day 1.
Three independent decisions
Each step stands on its own business case with an explicit exit option. You don't decide about the Pilot until the Assessment is complete. You don't decide about Implementation until the Pilot has proven itself. No multi-year commitment required.
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30 minutes
Discovery Call
A straightforward conversation to find out whether there's a fit. You tell us what's going on in the business — what's working, what's dragging, where you think the opportunity might be. We'll ask enough questions to form a view on whether AI can realistically move the numbers, and whether the engagement model makes sense for your situation. No pitch, no obligation. If there's a fit, we'll explain what the next step involves. If there isn't, we'll say so.
Book a call →01
Assessment · 3–5 days
AI Readiness Assessment
We sit down with your management team, extract data from your actual systems — operations platform, accounting software, headcount records — and answer two questions: where can AI move the numbers in this business, and is this organisation ready to implement it? We map each of the Five Bearings against your real numbers, benchmark against comparable businesses, and assess your data quality, technology infrastructure, team capacity for change, and process consistency. The output is a prioritised roadmap of 3–5 quantified opportunities — and an honest evaluation of what needs to be in place before any of them should be attempted.
02
Pilot · 90 days
Pilot
One opportunity. One metric. One success criterion. We take the single highest-ROI item from the assessment and implement it in a controlled, measurable way over 90 days. At Day 90, we compare the result against the baseline set at the start. If the metric moved, we discuss the rest of the roadmap. If it didn't, we diagnose why.
03
Implementation · 6–12 months
Full Implementation
We implement the remaining opportunities from the assessment roadmap — typically 2–4 use cases. Each gets its own internal champion: one person who owns the system after we leave. The engagement closes when your team can run everything without us. That is the explicit goal, and the test of completion.
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Ongoing
AI Air Cover
After implementation, we stay connected to your systems — providing the data intelligence and execution support that lets you pursue strategic initiatives faster. When you decide to expand to a second location, launch a new service line, evaluate an acquisition, or make a significant hiring decision, the infrastructure is already in place to model the outcome and track the result.
The head-start advantage
By the end of implementation, we have something no outside adviser could acquire quickly: live feeds into your operational systems, a working model of which levers drive which outcomes in your specific business, and structured, clean data where most SMEs have noise.
A consultant coming in cold would spend months getting oriented to all of that. At this point, we're already oriented. AI Air Cover keeps that advantage active — and deploys it against your strategic agenda.
What this looks like in practice
The value isn't the advice. It's that we already know enough about your business to answer the question quickly — and to track whether the decision produced the result you expected.
Expanding to a second location
Model the operational requirements against your current data before you sign a lease, not after. Identify what needs to be in place before the expansion creates chaos.
Launching a new service line
Identify which existing customers are most likely to convert, model the revenue impact, and build the tracking system before the launch — not six months in.
Making a hiring decision
Find out whether the constraint is capacity or throughput before you commit to headcount. The answer is usually in the data. It's rarely obvious without it.
Evaluating an acquisition
Run a Five Bearings diagnostic on the target and get an operational view alongside the financial one. Know what you're buying before you buy it.
Reducing key-person risk
Identify where a specific person is load-bearing in your data flows and build systems to distribute that dependency — before they leave, not after.
We also protect what you've built
AI systems don't maintain themselves. Three things cause every implementation to degrade — silently.
Technical drift — Platform APIs change. Models update. Integrations break without announcing themselves. What worked in January may produce different outputs by July.
Adoption drift — Teams revert to old habits. Champions leave. Override rates creep up. Six months after handover, a business can be paying for systems its team has quietly stopped using.
Data drift — The system was configured against your business at a point in time. Your business keeps changing. Without adjustment, outputs gradually diverge from reality.
Monthly monitoring catches degradation before it becomes expensive. The question is never whether systems drift — it's whether you catch it at 5% or 50%.
The cadence
Monthly
- ▸Operational performance report — one page of substance
- ▸30–45 minute meeting with the owner
- ▸System health check: usage, outputs, adoption signals
- ▸AI landscape scan: what's new that's relevant to your business
Quarterly
- ▸Strategic alignment session — what's on your agenda for the next 90 days
- ▸Map each initiative against the existing data infrastructure
- ▸On-site adoption check: observation, not just reporting
- ▸Identify any new capability worth scoping as a new pilot
Annually
- ▸Full Five Bearings re-assessment against 12 months of post-implementation data
- ▸Success fee settlement based on verified, accountant-checkable results
- ▸AI Air Cover scope review — adjust for what's stable, expand for what's new
On scope: AI Air Cover covers strategic initiatives that have a data or AI execution component. Initiatives requiring new capability beyond what's already in place are scoped separately as a new pilot — priced independently, not absorbed into the programme. If AI Air Cover ever stops making sense, we'll say so.
No commitment required
Start with a conversation.
Thirty minutes to find out whether there's a fit. No pitch, no obligation — just an honest look at whether AI can move the numbers in your business.
Book a discovery call →