AskBrian – Digitalizing “commodity” work packages

Brian is a reliable partner of and trusted by numerous well-known strategy consultancies. Due to its day-to-day usage in consulting, which is known to be a fast-paced and highly demanding business environment, Brian proved to meet new upcoming client needs through constant improvement and further development. By gaining trust from these demanding clients through its qualities to reduce “commodity” tasks effectively and providence of top-notch assistance, Brian well-established itself in the market.

Who is Brian and what can he do

Brian is an AI-Powered, digital assistant for consultants and business professionals in all industry verticals aiding in simplifying their daily work. In general, Brian aims at reducing the overall time spent on “commodity” tasks such as translations transcriptions, data sanitation and research tasks including public and private company analysis, industry KPIs and Peer analysis. By reducing the time on “commodity” tasks, Brian allows business professionals to focus 100% on value adding work and processes.

Brian’s skill set is divided into four different categories, file handling, research, slide graphics and “more” skills, such as consulting methods providing more than 100 methods with detailed instructions as well as business models giving in-depth information about business models and industries. Brian’s skillset is described in detail in Figure 1: “Visualization of AskBrian’s skillset.”

What are Brian’s skills?

As visualized in Figure 1, Brian takes over a variety of operative which would otherwise be comparably time consuming.

Figure 1: Visualization of AskBrian’s skillset

File handling

Brian can convert files from PDF, PNG, and JPG into any Microsoft Office format (docx, xlsx, pptx). Besides this, he can translate the file to more than 100 languages, as Brian is connected to DeepL, which enables high quality translations.

Additionally, Brian offers transcription services, where video and audio recordings, even when spoken in different languages, are transcribed to MS Word.

When sharing documents with partners or customers, Brian can help to erase sensitive contents the document may contain. He can sanitize numbers, company logos, images of individuals, personal information, links and more.

Summarizing, the file handling abilities of Brian will save valuable time by reducing the overall amount of file handling tools and consequentially increase the focus time of the company’s employees.

Research

Brian can provide an analysis of over 12 million privately held companies from Germany, Switzerland, and the UK. This analysis contains information about the business, relations, and key financials. He looks up the profit and loss statement, assets and equity and liabilities in the report of the company.

In addition to that, he can also provide detailed analysis of more than 50,000 publicly traded companies by giving insights (business intelligence data), financial information on annual and quarterly basis (P&L, balance sheet, cash flow statement).

If further insights about peers are required, the peer analysis will provide 70+ KPIs benchmarked against up to 15 of its peers. As a result, one will receive the analysis which contains nine structured tables each for growth, operating efficiency, and financial stability and one customized table which can be designed according to the user’s personal needs. Additionally, the 100 most relevant competitors with individual data will be provided to the user.

Having data of 800 industries in 130 countries, Brian will create a list of top companies in the chosen industry containing the company names, industries, headquarter countries and market caps. Knowing 100 industries, Brian can provide an industry report covering operative efficiency, growth, capital efficiency, net working capital, multiples, capital structure, cost of capital and risk by analyzing 80 indicators in total, e.g., Gross Margin, EBITDA, Revenues Growth 5Y and WACC.

Brian’s research functions reduce the overall effort and consequentially the time spent on desk research tasks required for a market analysis and peer review. Hence, users can analyze their competitors as well as a variety of different suppliers and service providers and compare them to their competitors.

Slide Graphics

Brian’s capabilities include major support with slide design by providing a selection of thousands of icons. That makes it easy to find suitable ones on every occasion and related to any topic of choice.

In the occasion that pictures for slides are needed, Brain also provides useful assistance by offering royalty free photos on hundred thousands of topics. Copyright is no longer of any concern.

For a serious, consistent, and modern appearance in business presentations Brian offers to send you one of 49 topic related packages with 20 to 40 slides templates in the slide deck based on your preferences and desired topic.

More

Additional useful tools include so-called consulting methods, which are not only designated to consultancies as the name might imply. Rather Brian provides you with over 125 methods designed to help you to overcome any business challenge your business might face. Of course, the necessary detailed instructions are provided to gain a deep understanding of the methods conducting appropriate measure as effectively as possible.

Brian further provides you with in-depth information about all business models and industries in case that a specific business model needs to be analysed or simply to get a broad overview of business models that potentially become relevant during a later step in a business model evaluation. In total Brian currently covers about 60 business models and 20 industries with a prospect of future additions.

In case that you need a good laugh Brain even provides you with some jokes.

What can Brian do for my company?

By using its existing functions, procurement managers can improve the quality of the company’s supply chain by comparing different providers for raw materials and services. Brian can accumulate all relevant information on existing suppliers and their 100 most important competitors. Peer to peer comparisons can also be prepared for the company’s competitors, its service providers such as the warehousing and third-party logistics providers as well as the freight forwarders. These peer-to-peer analysis of service providers and suppliers can aid in choosing new partners to work with. Brian can also help in updating the users on industry news, such as the introduction of new products by competitors.

Figure 2: Visualization of AskBrian’s potential

Why should you trust Brian?

Brian is a reliable partner of and trusted by numerous well-known strategy consultancies. Due to its day-to-day usage in consulting, which is known to be a fast-paced and highly demanding business environment, Brian proved to meet new upcoming client needs through constant improvement and further development. By gaining trust from these demanding clients through its qualities to reduce “commodity” tasks effectively and providence of top-notch assistance, Brian well-established itself in the market.

Brian further expands its client base by attracting interest and gaining trust of an ever-increasing number of well-known companies in industries beyond consulting. Summarizing, one can say that Brian has been able to show an impressive track record already and expects bright prospects.

What’s next?

In the occasion that Brian caught your attention, and you now plan to implement Brian as a reliable partner also in your company, FOSTEC & Company recommends one of two approaches to a successful software introduction and is pleased to lead you through the entire implementation process. The first option would be to implement Brian via the accelerated plug and play implementation process, where FOSTEC can act in a supporting role to finalize the project as quickly as possible. The second implementation would be to implement a custom solution stemming from Brian’s technology toolkit.

FOSTEC & Company’s approach to aiding in the implementation of a custom tool kit is based on several years of experience and gained expertise through various successful projects. The approach is visualized in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Visualization of FOSTEC & Company’s software introduction approach

Phase I: Script

The script ensures a smooth and structured software introduction by providing guidance through the entire process. The script basically is a site plan consisting of checklists, schedules and system overviews. It plans every step throughout the software introduction in great detail by formulating time limits and implementing a structured distribution of tasks. So called roll-backs, meaning back-doors into the old system in case of a worst case scenario, are initiated and smoke tests established to check the proper operation of the new system’s main functions.

Phase II: Software introduction

Two main introduction schemes can be followed in terms of introducing the new software introduction. Either the so-called “Big Bang” approach is chosen where the implementation is performed in a short timeframe and within the entire company. Favourable for this approach are established systems with agile data processing or if a data migration from the old system is not necessary.

Alternatively, the so-called interactive introduction can be selected, which is characterized by a gradual introduction per division resulting in less risks but higher planning activities and requires both systems to run in parallel.

Phase III: Training

Training is key to work appropriately and efficiently with the software tool following the approach that a system is only as good as its users. An established training strategy provides that a group of key-users are trained beforehand to ensure fast training of other personnel through the multiplication effects subsequently.

Phase IV: Data migration

Good planning is key to a smooth data migration. Planning activities include the procedure of developing a valid migration strategy, continuously testing, and improving the migration process. It is useful to switch the old system in a “read-only” mode some time before the data migration.

Phase V:

After the approval by the management, the software is installed on all devices preferably done on weekends to not interrupt the business flow. Simultaneously, the responsibility is handed over to the project team. During the pilot phase surveillance of data quality and performance is of fundamental importance.

To initiate your cooperation with Brian, we invite you to click the following link to receive a Free Trial – https://www.askbrian.ai/trial-form – or to schedule an appointment for a demonstration – https://www.askbrian.ai/demo.