The challenge
The team was not short of willingness: openness to change scored five out of five, and a paid AI assistant was already writing translations, supplier requests and emails. What it lacked was time. Requirements were turned into supplier requests by hand, quotes were compared and recalculated across many commodity groups, and confirmed orders were carried by hand through purchasing, customs and invoicing. Across three people, that added up to roughly one full-time job every week.
“Internal calculations are complex because of the wide range of commodities, and they are error-prone.”
How the assessment worked
- 1
Free assessment
A ten-minute questionnaire gives the first readiness score and the top three opportunities.
- 2
Company profile and website
A structured form on systems, team and costs, while Strados reads the company's website on its own.
- 3
Voice interview
A guided conversation of about 25 minutes, in the owner's own language, on how the work really gets done.
- 4
Report, checked by a person
Score, five opportunities with costs and returns, three quick wins and a 90-day plan. Reviewed by our team before it is sent.
What the report found
A score of 57 out of 100 puts the company in the Almost ready band, ahead of most professional services firms Strados assesses. It leads its peers on technology and digital adoption. Process maturity sits in the middle of the range, and that is exactly where the hours are lost. The timing mattered: with the new Zoho system going live, the report recommended connecting the steps now instead of rebuilding the old manual habits inside the new system.
The solution, step by step
- 01
Connected order-to-delivery chain
Link each confirmed order to its purchase order, supplier follow-up, customs papers and invoice inside Zoho.
Impact HighEffort HighZoho FlowZoho BooksZoho Inventory6–9
hours a week freed
- 02
Standard request packs for every commodity group
Turn the best past requests into templates so a request to five suppliers takes minutes.
Impact HighEffort MediumChatGPT BusinessZoho Forms4–6
hours a week freed
- 03
Rule-based quote comparison and landed cost
Compare supplier quotes and calculate the full delivered cost line by line, without recalculating by hand.
Impact HighEffort MediumZoho CreatorZoho CRM3–5
hours a week freed
- 04
Source-checked technical reference library
Answers to technical questions that show the source passage, so they no longer need a separate textbook check.
Impact MediumEffort LowNotebookLMChatGPT Business2–4
hours a week freed
- 05
Case-study website and direct enquiry intake
Today no new customer arrives through the website. Turn it into a measurable source of enquiries.
Impact MediumEffort MediumWordPressZoho Forms1–2
hours a week freed
Hours from the Strados Pro report, across the five parts of the solution. Projections, not measured results.
The first 30 days
- Measure quote volume and turnaround, and set one numbered growth target
- Check the data export and clean the supplier list before the new system goes live
- A shared library of tested instructions for daily writing and translation
The 90-day plan
Days 1–30
Set the baseline numbers and clean data, and put the first shared routines into daily use.
Days 31–60
Take the repeated manual steps between enquiry and order out of the week, and check each change against the baseline.
Days 61–90
Bring the remaining changes into daily use across all three roles, and set the next targets from measured results.
In their words
“Instead of a long list of generic AI ideas, it showed us where AI could actually create value in our daily business.”
What we liked most was the prioritization of concrete opportunities instead of a recommendation of the latest tools, and the distinction between quick wins and initiatives that require more preparation. That makes it much easier for management to decide where to start and where not to waste resources. The analysis challenged some of our own assumptions, which made the result more valuable than a simple confirmation of what we already believed.
An AI analysis cannot replace detailed implementation work or an experienced specialist for every topic. But as a structured starting point for an AI strategy we found it very convincing, and the process required far less time than a traditional consulting project.
Written by Francisco after reading the report
