Managed AI & Automation Improvement Programme
You know the business needs to improve. You do not need to know what to build. A managed improvement programme: appoint one Scorchsoft team to find the friction, choose the right intervention, implement it with your people and show what changed.
Most suppliers arrive after the hard part is done
The conventional buying journey assumes you have already decided what to build. Someone inside the business has to define the problem, choose the intervention and write the brief before a supplier will engage. That work is the difficult, political, time-consuming part — and it usually lands on the person who has least time for it.
The conventional route
- Notice a problem
- Diagnose it yourself
- Choose a solution
- Write a brief
- Supplier starts here
- Build
This programme
- Scorchsoft starts here
- Diagnose
- Choose
- Build
- Adopt
- Prove
We begin where management currently is: knowing that something has to improve, without yet knowing which thing.
What that leaves you managing today
Recurring friction that everybody recognises and nobody owns.
Scattered AI experiments and tool subscriptions, none of them finished.
No defensible way to choose which investment should come first.
No time to coordinate consultants, vendors, developers, users and analysts.
A fear of waiting too long, held in tension with a fear of approving the wrong thing.
Not more AI decisions. Management relief.
The scarce resource in most organisations is not technology budget. It is senior attention. This programme is designed to consume as little of yours as the work honestly allows.
Not more AI decisions
- Deciding which use case is worth trying first
- Evaluating vendors, platforms and models
- Coordinating consultants, developers and analysts
- Chasing a pilot that has quietly stalled
- Working out whether the last spend achieved anything
Management relief
- Set the mandate and the guardrails
- Name a sponsor and a process owner
- Open the right doors to systems, data and people
- Approve material decisions when they arrive
- Review the evidence and decide what happens next
Set the mandate. We carry the work. You review the evidence.
One honest caveat: “managed” means done-for-you at management level, not set-and-forget. The programme stays collaborative with your process owners, users and IT throughout, because an improvement designed without them does not survive contact with the actual work.
Interest is widespread. Systematic deployment is not.
Adoption figures are easy to misread, because “using AI” and “getting value from AI” are measured separately and mean very different things. These four are from different surveys with different populations, so they describe a pattern rather than a single number.
- 35% of UK businesses with 10 or more employees report using at least one AI technology, up from around 12% in late 2023.
- 10% of those adopters report using AI extensively. Most have it somewhere in the building, doing very little.
- 1.6 AI technologies used by the average adopting business, up only from 1.4 since late 2023. Adoption is widening rather than deepening.
- 56% of CEOs say they have seen no significant financial benefit from AI to date, across 4,454 chief executives in 95 countries.
Sources: ONS, Artificial intelligence in UK businesses: 2023 to 2026, 20 July 2026; PwC, 29th Annual Global CEO Survey, 2026. These figures come from separate studies measuring different populations. They should not be added together or read as stages of one funnel.
35%
of UK businesses use at least one AI technology (ONS, 2026)
10%
of those adopters use AI extensively (ONS, 2026)
1.6
AI technologies used by the average adopting business (ONS, 2026)
56%
of CEOs report no significant financial benefit from AI yet (PwC, 2026)
One system that keeps running, not a queue of separate projects
Scorchsoft owns the cadence and maintains the opportunity backlog. Every turn ends with a recommendation put in front of you, so the next decision is already prepared when you need to make it. The loop returns to Find — the backlog is a living document, not a one-off audit. You are not managing a supplier through this system. You are reviewing what comes out of it.
Find
Sit with the work as it runs and record where time, error and delay accumulate.
Prioritise
Score the backlog on value, feasibility, adoption burden and evidentiary strength.
Deliver
Build or configure the simplest intervention that could credibly resolve it.
Adopt
Put it in front of real users in real conditions, with the support to make it stick.
Prove
Measure against the baseline agreed before we began, and report it plainly.
Repeat
Scale, adjust or stop — then return to the backlog with what we learned.
Start with friction, not with AI ideas
Ideas that begin “could we use AI for…” tend to produce demos. Ideas that begin “this costs us four hours every day” tend to produce evidence. We score every candidate on four things before anything gets built: business value, feasibility, adoption burden and evidentiary strength. The grid below is a communication tool, not the decision itself.
Quick wins
High value, straightforward to deliver. Where a first proof usually belongs, because it produces evidence fastest.
Strategic bets
High value, harder to deliver. Worth doing once a quick win has established trust and a measurement habit.
Defer
Low value, easy to deliver. Tempting, and the most common way an improvement programme quietly becomes busywork.
Avoid
Low value, hard to deliver. Named explicitly so nobody rediscovers them in six months.
We start at the top and stop as soon as the problem is solved
Every step down this path costs more to build and more to run, so each one has to earn its place. Most work never reaches the bottom, and that is the intended behaviour rather than a limitation.
- Remove or redesign the step. The cheapest improvement is work you stop doing. A surprising number of steps exist because they once did, not because anyone still needs the output.
- Configure an existing tool. If your CRM, ERP or finance system already does this and nobody switched it on, we will tell you. We earn nothing by selling you a build you did not need.
- Automate a workflow. Deterministic rules moving work between steps, with status, retries and alerting. Predictable, testable, cheap to run. See business process automation.
- Integrate systems. Most rekeying is two systems that never learned to talk. See system integration.
- Build an app or portal. When the workflow needs somewhere to live — multi-user, permissioned, auditable. See mobile and web app development.
- Add a controlled AI capability. Where the work genuinely needs judgement over unstructured input, with guardrails and human review. See AI automation and AI agent development.
- No build. A legitimate outcome. If the honest recommendation is that nothing should be built, you get that recommendation and the reasoning behind it.
AI is a capability, not an obligation imposed on every problem.
The first 90 days
Days 1–30
Find and baseline
We map the friction where it actually happens, score the opportunities against the four criteria, take a baseline measurement, and agree the first Proof Schedule in writing — what will be proved, how it will be measured, and what a good result looks like.
Days 31–60
Build and prepare
We implement the chosen intervention along with its controls, test it against the exceptions your team already knows about, and prepare the adoption plan with the people who will use it.
Days 61–90
Launch and prove
We put it into controlled operational use, support the people using it, resolve what surfaces, measure the evidence against the baseline, and recommend what should happen next. Day 90 is a decision gate — not an automatic renewal, and not a claim that organisation-wide transformation is finished.
Progress you can inspect before the ROI figure matures
A financial result takes time to become trustworthy. These are the intermediate assets that let you judge whether the programme is working long before that number is meaningful — and each one exists whether or not the eventual answer is positive.
An opportunity map
Where the friction actually is, documented from the work rather than from a workshop.
A live prioritised backlog
Maintained by us, visible to you, re-scored as we learn more.
A working operational change
Something real, in use, doing the job — not a prototype or a slide.
Adoption evidence
Whether people are actually using it, and what they route around when they do not.
A baseline-versus-result read-out
The same measurement taken before and after, reported without spin.
A next recommendation
Continue, adjust, defer or stop — all four are legitimate outcomes, and we will tell you which one we think it is.
Technology changes the workflow. Participation decides whether it sticks.
Adoption is where most improvement work quietly fails, and it is not a training problem. A change designed without the people who live with the process gets routed around, politely and permanently. This is built into the programme rather than sold alongside it.
Stage one — Involve
We talk to the people who do the work before we design anything, because the real process and the documented process are rarely the same thing.
Stage two — Co-design
We test the intervention with the users it affects and adjust it while adjusting is still cheap. Their objections are design input, not resistance to be managed.
Stage three — Embed
We clarify what each role now does differently, support the new habit through the awkward first weeks, and stay until the workflow is the normal way of working.
Light on your time, clear on your control
Light is not zero. The programme needs a sponsor who can unblock access and decide, and a process owner who knows how the work really runs. Those two dependencies are real, and we would rather name them now than discover them at day 60. The indicative cadence is a sponsor kickoff, targeted user and system access sessions, a short weekly operational touchpoint, a monthly evidence review, and the day-90 decision.
| Stage | Leadership | Operational team & IT | Scorchsoft |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mandate | Sets the business objective and the guardrails we work inside. | Names the constraints and exceptions the objective must survive. | Translates the mandate into a prioritised opportunity backlog. |
| Access | Authorises access to systems, data and people. | Provisions accounts, environments and test data under least privilege. | Specifies the minimum access needed and works inside it. |
| Find | Appoints the sponsor and the process owner. | Walks us through the real workflow, including the workarounds. | Observes, documents, baselines and recommends what to do first. |
| Deliver | Approves the Proof Schedule and any change to it. | Reviews and tests the intervention against real cases. | Designs, builds, assures and documents the intervention. |
| Adopt | Backs the change publicly, so the team knows it is not optional. | Uses it, reports what breaks, and adjusts the way of working. | Runs the introduction, supports users and resolves what surfaces. |
| Prove | Receives the read-out and makes the continue, adjust, defer or stop call. | Confirms the measurement reflects the work as experienced. | Measures against the baseline and reports it without spin. |
We prescribe the route. You are not asked to self-diagnose.
There is no package buffet on this page, deliberately. Choosing between tiers is a job you would have to do with less information than we have after an hour of conversation, so we do it instead. A fit conversation ends in one of four recommendations, and we will tell you which one we think it is before the call ends.
Direct admission to the 90-day programme
Scope, ownership and access are clear enough to start. Most conversations that fit end here.
Planning first
A separately priced planning engagement to resolve what is still uncertain before anyone commits to 90 days. Three depths, from £1,500 + VAT.
A different Scorchsoft route
A defined build, an integration, an app rescue or an ongoing support arrangement — whichever actually matches the problem.
No action
Sometimes the honest answer is that now is not the time, or that this is not ours to solve. You will get that answer too.
Where a planned route leads
The initial mandate
We recommend the smallest mandate capable of producing credible evidence. A larger mandate that proves nothing is worse value than a smaller one that proves something.
Focused
- One narrow process family and one principal proof.
- Enough to establish whether the improvement loop works in your business, without committing further than that question requires.
Embedded
- Cross-team discovery, faster delivery and a greater change burden carried by us.
- This is the usual recommendation where it is justified — not universally the better package.
Not sure which mandate fits? A fit conversation ends with our recommendation, not a menu.
Planning is priced separately, in three depths
Where we cannot yet prescribe the full mandate responsibly, we plan first. Which depth you need depends on how much has to be resolved before the engagement starts, rather than worked out month by month once it is running. Planning is not a toll booth and it is not a qualification hoop — most conversations that fit go straight into a programme.
AI Velocity Planning — from £1,500 + VAT
A few focused sessions and a build plan inside about a week. For when the shape of the work is nearly clear already.
AI Discovery — from £3,000 + VAT
Map the process properly, test feasibility against the real systems, and size the options before anyone commits.
AI Strategy — from £6,000 + VAT
Itemised strategic work where the question spans several teams, systems or business areas at once.
What an Output Unit covers
Output Units cover the whole delivery capability rather than one discipline: discovery, product leadership, design, engineering, QA, adoption support and measurement. You are not buying developer hours and then paying separately for someone to work out what to build.
What sits outside the mandate
Hosting, Support & Maintenance, model and API consumption, third-party licences, specialist assurance and material travel are charged separately unless your Proof Schedule explicitly includes them. Keeping them separate stops a running-cost line quietly consuming the Output Units you bought for improvement work.
90-Day Evidence Promise
We will put the agreed improvement into controlled operational use and deliver an evidence read-out against the baseline within 90 days. If we do not get there for reasons within our control, we keep going at our own cost, up to a further 30 Output Units, until the proof is finished. (Subject to mutual agreement and contract.)
Goodwill, not a service level
Not an SLA, service credit or penalty. Where it applies we do more work — nothing is paid out.
The target is named up front
The Proof Schedule sets what we are moving and how it will be measured, before anything is built.
Evidence, not a guaranteed result
A proof showing an idea does not work is still a completed proof — and it has saved you the next round of funding.
Typical targets
- A named process runs end to end without anyone rekeying data between systems.
- Average turnaround on a defined case type, measured before and after.
- The error or rework rate on a specific step, baselined then re-measured in live use.
- A defined report assembles itself instead of being compiled by hand.
- A queue nobody could see into has an accurate status for every item.
What it depends on
The things only you can provide: the access we agreed, participation from the sponsor and process owner, users available to test and adopt, and decisions made in reasonable time.
If those stall, the timeline stalls with them — and we will say so early and in writing rather than quietly at day 90.
Engineers first, which is why the advice is worth taking
We recommend what we know can be built, integrated, adopted and run — because we are the ones who will have to do it. Fifteen years of bespoke apps, portals and system integrations sit behind this programme, alongside the AI delivery work we do now.
That span matters here. Discovery, product leadership, UX, engineering, QA, delivery management, adoption support and reusable accelerators are all in one team, so nothing falls into the gap between an advisor who cannot build and a developer who cannot advise. See AI Agents & Automation Development and AI consultancy.
We build our own products too — Work Ticket Buddy and the AI Agent Engine among them. They are mentioned here as evidence that we run this work on ourselves, not as customer case studies.
Where day 90 leads
- Continue through AI Momentum. Keep the loop running with the same team, working the backlog you now have.
- Move a defined product into Velocity Sprints. Once something is properly defined, fixed sprints deliver it faster and more cheaply than a managed programme would.
- Add Support & Maintenance and Hosting. Keep what is live running reliably. See Ongoing AI Development & Support.
- Combine routes. Keep the programme running in one area while a defined build proceeds in another.
- Stop, with the evidence and the agreed assets. A real option, not a reluctant concession. You keep the intervention in operational use, the documentation and the agreed assets, and you owe us nothing further.
Not sure whether this is the right route?
A fit conversation ends in one of four recommendations — direct admission, planning first, a different Scorchsoft route, or no action. We will tell you which one we think it is before the call ends.
Frequently Asked Questions
No — that is the point of the programme. If you already have a defined use case and a defined solution, a defined build will serve you better and cost less; we will tell you that at the fit conversation and point you at the right route. This page exists for the case where you know something must improve and cannot yet name the project.
Indicatively: a sponsor kickoff, targeted access and user sessions early on, a short weekly operational touchpoint, a monthly evidence review, and the day-90 decision. The heavier commitment sits with your process owner during discovery and testing rather than with leadership. It is deliberately light, but it is not zero — a programme with an absent sponsor does not produce evidence.
Scorchsoft owns the cadence and the backlog. We decide what to examine next and bring you a recommendation, rather than waiting for you to raise tickets. It means done-for-you at management level — not set-and-forget, since the work stays collaborative with process owners, users and IT. It also does not mean we operate your business process or carry a production SLA; those are separate arrangements.
Only when scope, ownership, access or readiness is too uncertain for us to responsibly commit to a 90-day proof. Planning is priced separately from the programme and comes in three depths — AI Velocity Planning from £1,500 + VAT, AI Discovery from £3,000, AI Strategy from £6,000 — and which one fits depends on how much has to be settled before the engagement starts rather than as it runs. It is not a compulsory first step and not a qualification hoop; most conversations that fit go straight into a programme.
Then we will not use it. The intervention path starts with removing a step, redesigning a process and configuring tools you already own, precisely because those are cheaper to run and cannot fail in production. “No build” is a legitimate recommendation and we make it when it is true. AI is a capability we reach for when the work needs judgement over unstructured input, not a default.
No, and you should be wary of anyone who does. What we commit to is in the 90-Day Evidence Promise: the agreed proof goes into controlled operational use and is reported against the baseline within 90 days, and if we do not get there for reasons within our control we keep working at our own cost until it is finished. That is a goodwill commitment built into the programme rather than a service level. We commit to the evidence, not the result — guaranteeing the result would mean either inflating the measurement or only ever attempting things we already knew would work.
You own the bespoke work we produce for you and the documentation that goes with it, on the standard terms in your contract. Where we use our own pre-existing accelerators to reach the outcome faster, those remain ours and you receive a licence to use them within the delivered solution. We identify anything in that category before we build it, not afterwards.
You decide, on the evidence. Continue through AI Momentum, move a defined product into Velocity Sprints, add Support & Maintenance and Hosting, combine those routes, or stop. If you stop, you keep the intervention in operational use, the documentation and the agreed assets.
No. Day 90 is a decision gate. The initial commitment is three calendar months and it ends there unless you choose to continue.
Least-privilege access agreed up front, human review for consequential actions, an audit trail of what the intervention does, monitoring, and a manual fallback so the business keeps running if we switch something off. These are engineering defaults for us rather than extras on a quote.
Building for teams across healthcare, logistics, motorsport and manufacturing
What Our Clients Say
Scorchsoft helped us take our idea for an app and make it a reality. Everything from the planning meeting to decide what we really needed to the project management and execution was great. It was delivered on time - early in fact - and on budget. Highly recommend.
Rebecca PalserDragonfly IntelligenceScorchsoft is a brilliant company with fantastic knowledge of the mobile app industry. From the project management to the development team, they have been the perfect candidate for our project, and we can't thank them enough!
Lance ChorltonGapped OnlineWe're really pleased with the work Scorchsoft has done in developing our web portal! They have been accurate with timelines and budget, delivering a solid product that allows us to monitor and manage patients remotely while they use our novel medical device at-home. The "plan - design - build" approach has worked well and saved us time in the long-run by catching requirements and issues early.
Daniel GreenSensTrainI'm really pleased with how my app came out, it was exactly what I was looking for. The team at Scorchsoft are great at what they do and made the whole process as simple and easy as possible. Being someone who is not very tech savvy the set up and back end operations were done in a great easy to use manner even for myself which makes using my app stress free. Thanks to all the team!
Ruben CarrollMosaic MasterpiecesThe new Flourish Education website has already removed a lot of manual processes, freeing up both schools, candidates and internal employees time. We are delighted with the look and feel which is clean, professional and more engaging. We are also pleased with the decision to have an HD video background on the homepage, and building immediate trust with our clients by giving them a taste of what it looks like in the Flourish Education offices.
James HancocksMarketing Manager, Flourish Education I can't believe how quickly we started to see results with this project. Scorchsoft provided us with graphic-designed mockups of how the app would look once built, and we were able to sell the product for use by our first customer before the product was finished. Since launching in March, we have secured a major television network as a client who now uses Image Approvals to manage the talent approval process for their productions.
Aimee SpinksMD, ImageApprovals.com
Need help building your ideas?
Tell us where you're headed and we'll come back with our thoughts, a realistic plan and a rough cost estimate. Scorchsoft is a UK-based team of app, portal and AI developers, working in-house from Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter.