Discipline
Cost of AI and software
Knowing what already runs and what it actually costs, where it is better off running and what to stop paying for.
5 services in this discipline
This is yours if
Three signs that this is yours.
- The portfolio is past a hundred applications and some functions are covered more than once.
- There is pressure to bring inference in house, for security or for cost.
- A process that matters depends on something made by someone who is gone.
Use this today, without hiring anyone
Nearshore capability build
The five questions that predict whether a new center will deliver. They get answered before hiring anyone, and the one that fails is the fourth.
- Which disciplines and how many groups? A center with one large group does not scale; one with too many groups seizes up at the interfaces.
- Who trains the first wave, and with what written curriculum? If the answer is "the people back home, when they can", the center will learn by accident.
- How does someone get certified as able to operate alone? Without a written criterion, certification is the opinion of a manager in a hurry.
- What is the career path for whoever joins today? It is the question that decides year two attrition and it is unanswered on the day the center opens.
- Where do the team leads come from in eighteen months? If the answer is "we bring them in from outside", the center will never be autonomous.
It comes from Nearshore capability build. Every service in this discipline brings its own.
The 5 services in this discipline
How much of your software and AI spend can you cut without breaking anything?
We were told to bring the budget down and every owner defends their application.
The real spend, not the contracted one: what capability you pay for twice, which renewal is leverage and what is better shut off, renegotiated, consolidated or built.
See the situationWhere inference runsWhat does your AI actually cost, depending on where it runs?
Upstairs they want to bring it in-house and I am the one who will have to operate whatever they decide.
Your break-even point calculated with your volumes, and the failure mode you take on if you decide to self host.
See the situationSelf built software debtWho maintains the applications the business areas built on their own?
The areas built their applications with AI and the person who made them left in March.
What got built, who answers for each thing, what happens the day it fails and what it really costs to sustain it. With an owner and an operating manual.
See the situationMainframe succession programWhat happens when the two people who hold up your core system retire?
The person who knows retires in eighteen months and there is nobody to replace them.
The critical knowledge documented and the successors certified operating alone before the specialist leaves.
See the situationNearshore capability buildHow do you make your center deliver what the business case promised?
We opened the center a year ago and it still does not deliver what we were promised.
The operating model, the technical curriculum and the pipeline of team leads, until the center sustains its service level without us.
See the situationThe other disciplines
AI strategy
12AI governance and compliance
9Automation and agents
8Data and analytics
5Cybersecurity and resilience
4Critical operations and crisis
5Mergers, separation and diligence
4Infrastructure and platform
5Or see it by the cycle: Vanguard, Forge and Taskforce. Or by the question you arrive with, in the seven questions. And if you already know the name, there is the full list.
What is the decision you have in front of you this week?