Case Study · Boutique Consulting · Six-Week Program
Burnie Group, a 15-person M&A advisory in Toronto, built a scenario-analysis workflow that reviews 30 scenarios in the time it took to review three, and opened access to a class of projects in the $200,000 to $1 million range. The team runs it. Harlem Labs is not in the loop.
Fifteen people. Toronto. M&A advisory, led by an ex-McKinsey founder. Not a firm short on intelligence or research.
“The problem we were trying to solve was how can AI be deployed in a boutique management consulting firm like Burnie Group.”
The same route most firms try first, and the one that stalls most reliably.
“What we had tried before was really just self-help tutorials going online, watching YouTube, reading articles, podcasts.”
A six-week engagement. Alexey Saltykov, Practice Leader, built a scenario-analysis workflow for post-merger integration work, with Harlem Labs in the room as architect and teacher rather than as the builder of record. Map the operation, build the system, transfer the capability.
Not efficiency. Net-new capacity in the part of the practice that prices in six figures. The workflow opened access to that class of project; it did not book the revenue, and nobody here will claim it did.
“Alexey’s tool is purely value created. We weren’t doing it before. We couldn’t have done it without AI. And you helped to enable and create that capability.”
“Those types of projects can last six months to a year. And you can have projects that range in terms of top-line revenue from $200,000 to $1 million.”
The Burnie team. The engagement ended when they no longer needed Harlem Labs in the room, which is the standard every engagement is built toward: capability, not dependency.
“Instead of analyzing three scenarios, we can review 30 all in the same amount of time.”
In his words
“Harlem Labs was excellent at educating our team, providing the guidance, counsel, and advice to enable us to create value through designing a process that had never existed before. Waziri is super bright, super knowledgeable about AI, and will go deep into the weeds to help you understand the inner workings of how this whole AI thing works. We couldn’t have done it without AI, and Harlem Labs helped to enable and create that capability.”
David Burnie, CEO, Burnie Group
“This has really opened our eyes to what AI could do. If we don’t jump on AI, we’re going to be left behind.”
The engagement is six weeks, priced as a program, and ends with your team running the system. The entry point is a 30-minute strategy call.