Case Study
Regional Logistics: Killing 22 of 27 AI vendor evaluations.
A $240M regional logistics firm with four business units and no central AI thesis. A very tired CIO.
- Sector
- Regional logistics
- Engagement
- Strategy sprint · 6 weeks
- Status
- Completed Q4 2025
Situation
Four business units. Twenty-seven active AI vendor evaluations. Thirteen different sponsors. One very tired CIO, one nervous board.
The CFO had put a freeze on new AI spend until someone could explain what it was actually for. The CIO brought us in to do that job in six weeks.
What we did
- Inventoried all 27 evaluations. Requested the business case, the owner, the expected P&L impact, and the next check-in date.
- Of the 27, fourteen had no quantified business case on paper. Nine had overlapping scopes.
- Ran a prioritization exercise with the exec team against two axes: dollar impact and buildability. Anything below the median on both got killed.
- Wrote a one-page AI thesis the CFO could defend to the board. Left the company with a scoring rubric for the next time a vendor showed up.
Outcome
- Canceled 22 of 27 evaluations. Consolidated three of the remaining five into a single procurement.
- ≈$1.8M saved in year-one committed software spend.
- CIO got back a measurable chunk of calendar. The CFO got a document she could wave at the board. The board stopped asking for a Chief AI Officer hire.
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