Work · Cyber and IT consulting firm

    The longest-serving leaders believed the firm was ready for AI. The newest leaders saw what they could not.

    A profitable, fast-growing consulting firm wanted to use AI in its core business: finding and placing specialist talent. Before recommending anything, we asked each executive how ready the company really was.

    Client
    Cyber and IT consulting firm
    Sector
    Professional services · Serves defense and security clients · More than 1,000 specialist consultants
    Engagement
    AI readiness assessment and AI strategy roadmap
    Status
    Assessment delivered

    3.5 vs 2.4

    Readiness score, tenured leaders against new leaders

    6

    Executives interviewed

    6

    Readiness dimensions scored

    The challenge

    • The CEO saw AI as central to the firm's next stage of growth and wanted to know what results to expect.
    • The firm placed technical experts with clients every day, but had almost no internal technical team of its own.

    What we did

    • Interviewed the six-person executive team, from the CEO and CFO to the heads of growth, operations, recruitment and delivery.
    • Scored readiness across six dimensions: stakeholders, capabilities, culture, compliance, capacity and constraints.
    • Compared how leaders with more than five years at the firm saw readiness against leaders who had joined within the year.
    • Turned the findings into prioritized AI use cases in recruitment and finance, a governance plan and a phased roadmap.

    What the assessment found

    • Tenured leaders rated the firm's readiness about 45% higher than new leaders did. The CEO rated it highest on every dimension.
    • The widest gap was compliance. Long-tenured leaders trusted the firm's defense-grade governance. Newer leaders saw that AI ethics and AI regulation were not yet covered.
    • The only point of agreement was the constraints: the firm had no KPIs for AI, and no plan for absorbing the change.
    • Budget was not the barrier. One newer executive had already set money aside for AI, and others did not know.

    New leaders rated readiness lower on five of six dimensions.

    Average readiness score by dimension, 1 to 5

    • Leaders with 5+ years at the firm
    • Leaders who joined within the year
    Stakeholders
    4.02.2
    Capabilities
    3.52.3
    Culture
    3.82.7
    Compliance
    3.91.8
    Capacity
    3.62.4
    Constraints
    2.32.8
    Source: executive readiness interviews led by Lara Shackelford, six executives, April 2024. Higher is more ready.

    What we recommended

    • Align the leadership team on one AI vision before building anything, starting with an executive AI immersion.
    • Start with AI-enhanced recruitment, the firm's core business, and AI for finance efficiency, each with a proof of concept and KPIs.
    • Set up AI governance and responsible AI guidelines suited to defense work, and an AI literacy program across functions.

    Assessment and strategy only. Delivered by Lara Shackelford in 2024 and written up for her University of Oxford Postgraduate Diploma in AI for Business. The client is confidential.

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