Does this sound familiar?
You read about companies saving hours with AI. Every week someone online promises to transform your business. Your people may already be using ChatGPT without any agreement about it. And the conversations you have on the subject are about models, tools and possibilities, rarely about your company.
What you want to know is simpler: where does this pay off here, what does it cost, and who is going to work with it? That is the question we start from.
Where AI usually pays off in an SME
Quotes and sales follow-up
Build quotes from what is already in your files, and follow up without depending on who remembers to.
Customer communication and email
Answers to the questions that come back every week, prepared in your company's tone.
Files and documents
Make contracts, reports and manuals searchable, so nobody spends half a day looking for what was agreed two years ago.
Reporting and figures
Bring numbers from your systems together into a report that is readable without someone spending hours in Excel first.
Vacancies and candidates
Write job postings, pre-sort candidates and prepare interviews.
Tasks inside your existing software
Actions done step by step by hand today, carried out by an AI assistant, with someone still checking the result.
Not all of this fits every business. What counts for yours comes out of the assessment.
How we start: an assessment
We begin with a conversation with you. Where do time, money and energy drain away, and what would you want to run better?
Then we talk to the people who actually do the work. That part is often skipped, and it is exactly where the hours become visible. Whoever rebuilds the same quote every week knows better than anyone how long it takes.
You then receive a report setting out the improvements that are possible in your business.
What that report contains
Automate
Work done by hand today that can disappear.
Augment
Work that stays, but becomes faster or better.
Innovate
Something that is not feasible today and is with AI.
Not a list of twenty tools. Two or three opportunities you can actually carry out this year, with what they return and what they ask in time, money and people.
Then: choosing and implementing
The report is not the end point. We look together at which opportunities match what your business can handle today, and then we put them in place: choose the solution, set it up with your own data, and teach your people to work with it.
That happens as an agreed assignment: a defined piece of work, a number of days per week or per month, with fixed moments to review progress.
What we put in place ourselves, and when a specialist joins
Much of what an SME can do with AI today runs on existing services that you set up with your own data and ways of working. That part we take on ourselves: choosing the application, configuring it, testing it on real files, agreeing how it may be used and teaching your people to work with it.
As soon as software has to be built, connections to your systems have to be programmed or models have to be trained on large volumes of data, our part stops. We say so, and we help you find and steer the right specialist. We do not build software or AI models ourselves.
The hard part starts after the tool
Putting an AI solution in place is one thing; making sure it gets used is another. Your people need to know what they may do with it, what does not belong in it, and what happens to their work.
So agreements come with it: which company data may go into which system, who checks the output, and what you do when it gets something wrong. That is not a legal exercise but a practical one. Without those agreements, use tends to stay limited to the people who picked it up on their own.
We use this ourselves, every day
We work with Claude and ChatGPT ourselves: quotes, analyses, email, preparatory work and tasks inside our own software. So we are not talking about technology we know from a slide, but about what is left of it when you try to run a business with it.
Ilona and Wim also completed the AI for Business programme at Vlerick Business School.
How we approach AI
What we do and don't do
What we do
- Start with your business, and only then with the technology.
- Map the opportunities and rank them by what they return.
- Choose a solution, set it up with your own data and teach your people to work with it.
- Agree which company data may go into which system.
- Say so when AI is not the answer.
What we don't do
- Build software or AI models ourselves.
- Deliver training programmes or develop software.
- Introduce AI without a clear business need behind it.
- Promise that AI will replace your staff.
- Advise businesses that develop AI themselves.
If your question genuinely calls for predictive models, forecasting on large volumes of measurement data for instance, we will say so. We then help you find the right specialist rather than pretending we build it ourselves.
Practical questions
Do we need to do a strategy exercise with you first?
No. The AI assessment stands on its own. You can bring us in for it directly, without any prior engagement.
How long does an assessment take?
It starts with a conversation with the owner, followed by conversations with the people who actually do the work. How many are needed depends on the size of your business. We agree on that beforehand.
Our data is confidential. What happens to it?
For the assessment you do not need to share confidential files: we look at how the work flows. When we implement, we agree which company data may go into which system and who checks the output.
Will AI replace people in my business?
Rarely in an SME. What usually disappears is work nobody enjoys: retyping data, rebuilding the same quote, searching through old files. Whether your people actually start using it depends on how the introduction is handled. That is why guiding that step is part of the assignment.
We already use ChatGPT. Is this still useful?
Then you have already taken the first step. The gain is usually in agreements about use, in connecting it to your own data, and in moving from loose conversations to work that sits firmly in your processes.
Get in touch
Curious what AI could do in your business?
The first step is an introductory conversation, not an assignment. In it we look together at whether an AI assessment makes sense for your business.
Ilona or Wim will contact you personally.
The introductory meeting is free and takes place at your own premises.