Narrator: A short guide from Scorchsoft, for MSPs and IT providers. When a client asks for software you can't buy off the shelf, what do you say?

Narrator: In the next few minutes: where Scorchsoft fits alongside you, where we don't, and how we protect your client relationship. The short version? You run the estate. We build what runs on it.

Narrator: It might be a customer portal. Two systems that need to talk. An AI agent on their own data.

Narrator: That usually leaves two options. One: say no, and hope nobody else says yes. Two: take it on, and risk the bigger contract if the build goes wrong.

Narrator: Why is it so hard? Because managed services are built to repeat: the same estate, identity, security and support for every client. Bespoke software is the opposite. Every build is different.

Narrator: That's where Scorchsoft comes in. We build bespoke software, data and AI, as a delivery partner to IT providers. You stay at the centre of the client relationship.

Narrator: So who does what? Your centre of gravity is the estate: tenancy, identity, security and day-to-day operations. Ours is the product: apps, portals, integrations and the custom AI inside them. Where we overlap, like Azure, Fabric and single sign-on, we agree the boundary before we start.

Narrator: And for anything in that overlap, the rule is simple: ownership follows the outcome, and the risk if it fails. Every piece of work has one accountable owner.

Narrator: So when do partners call us? When a process lives in spreadsheets. When systems need connecting. When an app needs rescuing. And when an AI pilot stalls before production.

Narrator: AI is where the overlap grows fastest. To see why, picture the AI Stairway to Success: seven steps, from no AI to an AI-first business.

Narrator: On the lower steps, approved access, Copilot and the controls around it usually sit with the IT provider. Further up, clients start building agents, and the question becomes where each one should live.

Narrator: Microsoft offers five places, from Copilot Chat and Agent Builder, up to Copilot Studio, Microsoft Foundry and your own code. We work at the top: in Foundry, in code, or a mix of the two, with the checks, guardrails and human in the loop around them. Many partners do some of this too, so we agree the line with each one.

Narrator: And here's what matters to you. Every agent needs data it can reach and permissions it can trust. Identity, access, data governance: that's your estate. The higher a client climbs, the more your estate matters.

Narrator: But tools alone don't get a client up those steps. Most teams were given AI, and nobody showed them how. Without a culture of using it well, staff push back on new ideas, and innovation only happens when it's forced from the top.

Narrator: That's why we wrote a course: the AI Stairway. Ten modules, each under an hour, take a team from what's safe to share, through briefing and checking AI, to shared team skills, connected tools and agents they can trust. It takes the friction out, so clients climb into the services you provide and the ones we build. Partners can offer it to their clients.

Narrator: Introducing anyone to your client takes trust, so before any work starts, we agree the rules. You stay at the centre. Scope, access, communication and handovers are written down first.

Narrator: Once work starts, it stays visible. Most new builds run in two-week VelocitySprint cycles: finished work, not hours, with daily updates. And every Friday there is a clear choice: continue, change or stop.

Narrator: Here's some of what we've built. A supplier search portal for WSH's procurement team. A national annual general meeting, voted online and counted live. Teacher assessment for an Oxford University spinout. Dragonfly's security intelligence, on their customers' phones. Stills approved or killed from an actor's phone. Motorsport, streamed live from two cameras at once. And our own products: AI Agent Engine, a managed platform for AI agents. And Lake On Rails, for governing a data lake.

Narrator: Sixteen years of building software people rely on. And we're based in Birmingham.

Narrator: So how do we start? With one client need, and we grow from there.

Narrator: Got a client need you can't buy off the shelf? Bring it to us. We'll tell you honestly whether to build it, and keep you at the centre.