Who’s advising you? How to choose your AI and automation advice.

Everyone has a view on AI and automation right now. Suppliers, consultancies, platform teams and the colleague who went on a course last month all have differing views. It can feel pretty confusing, and if you’re the one deciding where public money goes, the hard part is knowing whose advice to trust.

The Scottish Government’s new AI guidance is the advice we give, too: start with the problem you’re trying to solve, and remember the answer doesn’t have to be complex. Sometimes, the right solution is surprisingly simple. This guide will help you find the right people to help you do this.

Three kinds of automation advisers

The first thing to keep in mind when choosing your consultant is which of the following they fit into, and which one you would prefer to work with.

Independent advisers have no stake in what you buy. They’re paid for their time and expertise to help you identify automation and AI solutions. They hand off delivery to someone else, but they likely have trusted partners they recommend and refer to.

Delivery partners build and maintain automation, and some may also offer consultancy services. At EAS, we work with UiPath and Microsoft, so we can advise and deliver without being tied to one platform.

A platform’s own team knows its product better than anyone. Like any sales team, they work to targets, and they are unlikely to point you to a competitor’s tool.

Five questions to ask before you choose

Once you have some options in mind, it’s good to ask a few questions to help you decide on the best fit and get a clearer picture of how they work.

1. What’s the first part of your discovery process? Listen for questions about your processes, people and costs before anyone mentions a tool. Ask who they’ll spend time with, because the people doing the work know where a process slows down. A demo in the first meeting, or a price before anyone understands the problem, tells you they’re starting with a solution rather than the problem, which you don't want.
2. Can you tell me about a time you advised a client against buying something, or against automating at all? An adviser who has done it will have an example ready. One who hasn’t may stumble here.
3. What’s your relationship with the suppliers you’d recommend, and does it affect your advice? Partnerships are normal and useful, because once you’ve identified the solutions, you’ll need someone to build and maintain them. You just want them stated up front.
4. Is what I get at the end mine to take anywhere, and what’s your role if someone else builds it? Ask whether the work would stand on its own and be usable with any supplier. At EAS, we offer an automation assessment that identifies processes that would benefit from automation. You can also take the report we generate to any other supplier if you wish. Some advisers hand over and leave, some help you choose and manage the supplier, and some check the result against what they recommended. Each can work, as long as you know which one you’re buying. We also deliver and support, so you can keep one relationship from start to finish, though you don’t have to take our support package, and some clients take the build only.
5. Can you show results in organisations like ours, and can we phone them? Ask the references what went wrong as well as what went well.

What good advice leaves you with

By the end, you should have a clear list of processes that are a good fit for automation and a priority order. Each process should say what could change, how hard it would be to build, the kind of fix it needs, and at least one should say “not yet” or “not worth it”. A good adviser will also tell you what they don’t yet know.

Talk to us

If you’re deciding whether and where to automate, our Automation Opportunity Assessment is a good place to start. It’s a low-risk way to identify solutions before committing to a build. We spend time with the right people and give you a prioritised list of the processes that would benefit from automation, with the expected benefit and likely effort for each. The fee for this assessment is fixed and agreed before you commit.

Get in touch info@easuk.co.uk  and ask us these questions.

This article is sponsored by EAS

www.easuk.co.uk