GUIDES / OPERATOR FIELD MANUAL
The how-to, not the opinion.
Thinking is where we share a view. Guides are where we show the work: practical, step-by-step, cited. How to take AI from pilot to production, build commerce that converts, get found by AI search. Operators, not advisors.
Index20 guides
- From pilot to production: why most AI dies in the demoWhy most AI dies in the demo, and the operator's path to getting it live.
- How to get cited by ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI OverviewsA GEO playbook for B2B: how to become the answer AI engines quote, and the metrics that lie.
- How to replatform e-commerce without breaking the businessThe operator's sequence: what to migrate last, why big-bang loses a peak season, and the honest do-not-replatform-yet test.
- The first 100 days for a PE portfolio company: a value-creation plan that shipsWhen value comes from operations, not the cap table: the phased plan, the three levers worth chasing, and the deck-candy that never lands.
- Carve-out IT separation and TSA exit: the technology plan and the value at stakeThe IT clock sets the whole timeline. What to replace day one vs run on the TSA, and why exiting early unlocks value.
- Adoption is the work: how to make a rollout stick after go-liveGo-live is the start line, not the finish. Floor rituals, and measuring adoption on the floor, not the dashboard.
- US market entry for a European brand: the first 12 monthsOmnichannel, not pure DTC. A metro-first sequence, and the local-labor and tax traps a European org never sees.
- The store that sells: layout, circulation and the floor methodWhere most store-concept projects stop is the render. Ours starts on the floor: zones, circulation, staging, coaching.
- The connected floor: what in-store retail technology actually returnsWhy single-capability tag projects fail, and the bundle that pays back. Do not buy ESL just to change prices.
- The in-store retail tech business case your CFO will approveWhich benefits go in the NPV, which finance discounts to zero, and the bundling that flips the number.
- Turn your stores into fulfillment centers without wrecking the experienceA floor-design and labour problem first, a routing problem second. Decide what the store can give away before you turn on routing.
- The single customer view: recognise the same shopper online and in storeStitch identity for the two or three moments that change the experience first. Let the platform follow.
- Why your BOPIS keeps failing, and the inventory fix behind itIt gets blamed on the app. It is an upstream inventory-truth problem, fixed on the floor.
- The omnichannel playbook: one experience across web and storesOmnichannel is not software, it is the seam. The four joins to fix, in the order your customer feels them.
- How to fix a stalled digital transformationThe diagnostic that finds why it really stalled (almost never the status-report reason), and a 30-day restart.
- When NOT to hire a consulting firmA decision frame, and the three situations where you should not hire us. Honest, because that is the conversion.
- Alternative to McKinsey, BCG and the Big Four for mid-market retailA buyer's checklist, not a sales pitch: the six questions to ask any firm, and when you should still pay for the big brand.
- AI in production without leaking your data: a security and governance guideData boundaries, the vendor-data questions to ask first, and the controls you can defend to a board.
- Why agentic AI gets cancelled, and how to ship one that survivesOver 40% of agentic projects get cancelled. The failure modes, and the controls that survive the board.
- Build vs buy enterprise AI: when to build, when to buy, or neitherBuy by default, build only your edge: the decision table, the cases where building is malpractice, and the cost nobody prices in.