Outcomes over hours. Production over slides.
Four phases — Audit, Pilot, Production rollout, Scale & operate. Each phase has a fixed shape, named deliverables, and a decision gate. You can stop, slow down, or change direction between any of them.
Four phases, four decision gates.
Most engagements start at Audit and ~70% continue into Pilot. You can stop or change scope between any two phases — no penalty, no lock-in.
AI Audit & Roadmap
Workflow inventory, opportunity ranking by KPI impact + feasibility, prioritised 12-month roadmap.
- Inventory of 10–30 candidate workflows / use cases
- Ranked roadmap with expected ROI per item
- Recommended platform & data architecture
- Risk, compliance, and change-management notes
Pilot
One high-leverage use case taken to working software with real users — proving the architecture, not the slide.
- Production-quality pilot of the highest-ranked use case
- Evaluation framework + baseline metrics
- Integration hooks into 1–2 source systems
- Go / no-go decision data for production rollout
Production rollout
Harden the pilot, integrate with surrounding systems, ship to users, train operators, hand over.
- Production deployment in your cloud / region of choice
- Operator runbooks, monitoring, alerting
- Evaluation pipeline + drift dashboards
- Training + handover to your internal team
Scale & operate
Operate, evaluate, evolve. Add the next use cases from the roadmap. Keep retrieval, agents, and integrations honest as your data and team change.
- Quarterly drift + accuracy reviews
- New use case onboarding from the roadmap
- On-call coverage during your business hours
- Model + dependency upgrades on a schedule
IDS vs in-house build vs Big-4 vs other offshore.
Honest read of where each option wins. We've called out the cases where we're not the right answer — those are real.
- IDS6–10 weeks (pilot)
- Build in-house6–12 months (hire + ramp)
- Big-4 consulting12–20 weeks (engagement start)
- Other offshoreVaries — depends on vendor
- IDSFocused AI practice
- Build in-houseBuild internally — slow
- Big-4 consultingGeneralist + AI overlay
- Other offshoreVaries — generalist mostly
- IDSVietnam cost base, USD-quoted
- Build in-houseLocal senior salary × team
- Big-4 consultingUS / EU consulting rates
- Other offshoreSimilar (India / Phil / EE)
- IDSUTC+7 · 4h EU morning, 6h US evening
- Build in-houseFull overlap with your office
- Big-4 consultingDepends on local office
- Other offshoreIndia: limited US overlap
- IDSOurs — we ship & operate
- Build in-houseYours
- Big-4 consultingHand-off after delivery
- Other offshoreVaries by contract
- IDSEU / US / Singapore / your VPC
- Build in-houseYour infrastructure
- Big-4 consultingTheir cloud, sometimes
- Other offshoreVaries by vendor
- IDSDPA + subprocessor list ready
- Build in-houseYou configure
- Big-4 consultingStandard
- Other offshoreVaries — verify
- IDS100% yours by contract
- Build in-houseYours
- Big-4 consultingOften retained / shared
- Other offshoreVaries by contract
- IDSYou need outcomes in months, not years, on a controlled budget
- Build in-houseAI is a long-term core capability
- Big-4 consultingYou need brand cover for a board decision
- Other offshoreYou have detailed specs already
When IDS isn't right: if your engagement needs Big-4 brand cover for a board sign-off, you should buy Big-4. If AI is going to be a core internal capability for a decade, you should also be building in-house, with us as a partner on the first releases.
Engagement-shaped pricing, USD-quoted.
Indicative bands by engagement type. Final scope and price come from the Audit; we don't quote production fees on guesswork.
Decision-makers wanting a ranked roadmap before committing to build
One high-leverage use case to working software with real users
Harden pilot, integrate with surrounding systems, ship to all users
Run + evolve in production; ship roadmap items quarterly
All fees quoted in USD. Cloud, LLM-provider, and third-party SaaS costs are passed through at cost. Volume discounts apply to multi-phase commitments.
How engagements actually run.
Do we have to do all four phases?
No. Most engagements start with the Audit, and ~70% continue into a Pilot. If you've already done the audit work yourself, we can start directly at Pilot or Production rollout against your existing scope.
Can our team participate in the build?
Yes, and we encourage it. Production rollout commonly runs as a joint team — IDS engineers paired with one or two of yours — so the handover to your in-house team at the end of the engagement is smooth and complete.
Where does customer data live during the engagement?
In your cloud account, in a region of your choice — EU, US, Singapore, or otherwise. We do not host customer data in Vietnam unless explicitly requested. Subprocessor list and Data Processing Agreement are available on request.
How does the time-zone difference work in practice?
Our working hours are 09:00–18:00 ICT (UTC+7). That gives 4 hours of overlap with European mornings and ~6 hours with US East Coast late afternoons / evenings. Pre-arranged calls outside those hours are available. Slack / email response within one business day is standard.
What happens if the pilot fails?
The pilot is the go / no-go gate by design. If it doesn't hit the success criteria agreed in the Audit, we say so — and we don't push you into a production rollout that won't deliver. The audit roadmap usually identifies the next-best use case if the first one underperforms.
Want a 2-week audit, or a 90-minute scoping call first?
Both work. Most clients start with a scoping call, decide whether the audit makes sense, and go from there.