The Black Book
Find the gap. Plan the whole system.
If something is stopping your company from becoming AI-native, we help fill it, whether the gap is people, vendors, strategy or spend. The Black Book does that across the whole company: a plan for every department involved, deep enough to execute from, with one or two proofs of concept where a part needs proving first.
Every Black Book begins after a clinic day, where your team and ours build a working system on your own data.
The engagement
What the Black Book is
The Black Book is a strategy and planning engagement for the whole company. We map how your organisation actually makes and carries out its decisions, design the AI system that fits across every department involved, and hand over a plan your procurement, engineering and leadership teams can act on the day it arrives. It covers the four gaps that most often hold a company back.
STRATEGY
A plan for the whole company
Where AI fits in each department, ordered by what each piece depends on, and written for your board as a business plan.
On AI readinessVENDORS
The right vendor, scored
A ready-to-issue RFP and a scoring rubric, with lock-in terms written out of the templates before you sign. We sit on your side of the table through selection.
The integration taxPEOPLE
The right people
Named roles, salary bands for your market and what to test at interview, plus introductions to vetted engineers you can hire or contract.
The engineer networkSPEND
What it will cost to run
Implementation ranges, inference projections and a three-year cost of ownership, starting from the AI subscriptions you already pay for.
Who owns the decisionThe method
How the engagement runs
Most companies can describe the process they wrote down. The work usually runs through a different one. We map the real process first, measure it, and only then design anything.
Why most AI programmes stallSize it in Workflow Units
A 60-minute scoping call. A Workflow Unit is one end-to-end process that crosses departments, from intake to decision and reporting. The count sets the length and the fixed price.
Hear each side separately
Separate sessions with the people who do the work, the people who sign it off and the people who know why. Each describes a different process, and the differences are the finding.
Read the evidence
Timestamps, approval chains and revision counts show the waits nobody reports. We also ask to see the last five exceptions you handled, because that is where the real process lives.
Measure the baseline
Today's cycle time, handoff count and error rate, measured before anything is designed, so every later claim is checked against your own numbers.
Design the system, prove the risky part
The whole system across your departments, with build, buy or wait decided for each piece. Where a part needs proving before you commit, it is proved inside the engagement with one or two proofs of concept.
How long it takes
One department
1–2 Workflow Units
4–6 weeks
Three to five departments
3–5 Workflow Units
8–10 weeks
Ten or more departments
6–15 Workflow Units
12–16 weeks
The fit
Who it is for
The Black Book is bought by the CEO of a company of 51 to 1,000 people. It pays for itself where decisions are slow for reasons nobody owns. One question decides fit: is there a decision your company makes again and again, where most of the time goes on gathering, checking and chasing before anyone decides?
Experts doing retrieval
Senior people spend their day assembling context before they can apply the judgement you hired them for.
Work that crosses three or more teams
Every handoff adds a wait, nobody owns the whole path, and chasing status has become someone's job.
Precedent you cannot find
The answer to a past decision sits in an inbox or a shared drive, and finding it costs more than deciding again.
Pilots that never scaled
You already pay for AI seats. One team tried something. It never reached daily use.
Sector does not decide fit. A sales team whose deals wait on internal approvals qualifies the same way a funder reviewing applications does. It is a poor fit for a single-team process with no handoffs, or for work that is already fully automated.
The deliverables
The seven deliverables
Each one is written to be handed to procurement, engineering or leadership the day it arrives. Where several departments are involved, each goes deep, and the document is sized to match.
After the plan
Three ways to carry it out
A plan needs a route to execution. When the Black Book is delivered, you choose how the rest gets done and we make the introductions. We are paid by you alone, so the recommendation has nothing riding on which route you pick.
The right vendor
We run the RFP, score the field with the rubric from your procurement kit, make the introductions and sit on your side of the table through selection.
The right hire
Vetted engineers from the ArkOne network who want permanent roles, introduced onto your own payroll, with the hiring kit to assess them.
The right contractor
Engineers from the same network who work alongside your team on contract, for as long as the work needs them.
Independence
How the advice stays independent
Your data stays in your systems
The engagement runs on interviews, screen-shares and documents you choose to share. Where metadata helps, your own admin extracts it inside your tenant, and message content stays where it is.
Neutral on models and vendors
ArkOne is an Anthropic Partner and an OpenAI Select Partner, which is where the technical depth comes from. We are paid by you alone, so the scoring can rank any vendor first.
Targets, measured against your baseline
Every expected gain is a target, set against the baseline we measure with you in the first weeks, and reported against that number.
Questions
- What does the Black Book cost?
- A fixed fee from USD 30,000, priced on the number of Workflow Units in scope. You receive the scope and the price in writing within 48 hours of the scoping call, before you commit to anything.
- How long does it take?
- From 4 weeks for one department to 16 weeks for a company with ten or more. The scoping call sets the length.
- Is it just a document?
- You get the seven deliverables, plus one or two proofs of concept where part of the plan needs proving before you commit. For the rest, you choose the route: a vendor we help you select, engineers you hire, or engineers on contract.
- Will we be tied to one AI vendor?
- ArkOne is both an Anthropic Partner and an OpenAI Select Partner, and we are paid by you alone. The procurement kit writes lock-in prevention into your contracts, and the scoring can rank any vendor first.
- Do you need access to our systems?
- The engagement can finish on interviews, screen-shares and documents you choose to share. Metadata sharpens it when your own admin extracts it inside your tenant. We never hold a credential into your systems.
- Why does it start with a clinic day?
- A plan is easier to trust once you have seen a working system on your own data. The clinic day is one day where your team and ours build that system together. Companies that want the whole plan afterwards move on to the Black Book.
Start with one day.
Every Black Book begins after a clinic day, once your company has seen a working system on its own data. Already had yours? Book the 60-minute scoping call and we will send a fixed scope and price within 48 hours.