Scotia · Seattle, WA

A small number of workflows quietly absorb most of your operational cost.

We find them, make them explicit, and prove the economics — before you commit to anything larger.

The Problem

Manual rework, exception handling, and coordination gaps that never appear in one budget line.

In every retail and supply chain operation, a small number of cross-department workflows absorb a disproportionate share of cost. The rules were never made explicit — the cost sits hidden across teams, and the problem never gets fixed.

The cost sits across three or four teams — planning, logistics, commercial, finance. No single team owns it. No single budget carries it. That's not a failure of management. That's what happens when a workflow was never made legible enough to measure.

$2,300

Absorbed cost per purchase order — identified in a recent diagnostic at a major US retailer. At 30–50 POs a week, the compounding cost runs to millions annually. Spread across four teams, invisible in any single budget line.

What We Do

We take one high-cost workflow and make it fully explicit.

Decision logic, ownership, exception rules, data contracts — documented, validated, and proven on real volume. Fixed scope. Fixed fee. Six to eight weeks. Stage 0 requires two subject matter experts — approximately three hours a week. We work around your schedule. Everything we produce is yours. We leave capability behind, not dependency.

Who We Work With

VP Supply Chain, VP Operations, and COO at enterprise retail and supply chain companies — the leaders who carry this cost in their P&L.

What You Keep

A working, validated workflow. Full decision logic. RACI and SLAs. Data contracts. Unit economics before and after. A build-ready specification.

Why Not the Big 4

Big 4 diagnose and propose. The diagnosis ends with a programme sized to their rates. We prove before we propose — and you own every output from day one.

The lowest-risk move you can make.

A free 20-minute Diagnostic conversation. One workflow, one conversation — we map where the cost sits and tell you if the numbers justify going further. No preparation. No commitment. If it's not there, we'll tell you.

Book a Diagnostic
The Engagement Path

Start with a free diagnostic. Commit only when the numbers are there.

Start here
Diagnostic
Free · 20 minutes

One conversation. Map one workflow, locate the cost, decide if the numbers justify going further. No commitment. No preparation.

Stage 0
Define & Prove
$75k · 6–8 weeks

Workflow X-ray, decision logic, RACI, exception taxonomy, data contracts. Unit economics before and after. Build-ready spec. Fixed scope. Fixed fee.

Stage 1
Live Pilot
$100–125k · 6–10 weeks

Redesigned workflow on real data, connected to your systems, validated by your teams. Proven KPIs. Only if Stage 0 proves the ROI.

Stage 2
Production Build
Scoped post-pilot

Hardened integrations, monitoring, dashboards, governance. Build model is your choice. Scoped after Stage 1 validates.

On AI

Workflow clarity is the prerequisite to AI delivering returns.

Whatever AI strategy, tools, and platform you are deploying — we make the workflows ready to receive it. AI is an accelerant: it improves what is clear and magnifies what is broken. Stage 0 output is the foundation that makes every AI initiative that follows work.

"The fastest path to AI ROI is workflow clarity first."

The Team

Practitioners, not generalists.

Duncan Ledwith
Founder · Scotia Ltd

18 months embedded with AI deployments across retail, supply chain, banking, and ESG. Ex-Microsoft. Earlier work includes assessing and commercialising a PE-backed rules-based workflow platform across SE Asia. Scotia Ltd est. 2005, Seattle WA.

Paul Davis
Technical Partner

Ex-Microsoft Pioneer. MIT. 25+ years in AI product architecture. Delivers technical validation, workflow architecture, and proof-of-concept builds alongside client teams.

Start with a 20-minute diagnostic.

One workflow. No commitment. No preparation required.

Get in touch