A strategy.
No operating model
to carry it.
A publicly listed healthcare network had an AI strategy, an innovation roadmap, and eleven active vendors. It also had four steering committees, no single executive owner, and zero production AI in clinical or operational workflows.
Vendors consolidated
From fragmented portfolio to unified stack
Diagnosis delivered
From engagement start to board-ready findings
Steering committees dissolved
Replaced with single executive owner
Accountable executive
Owns AI portfolio end-to-end
Eleven vendors. Four committees. No decisions.
The network had built an impressive vendor portfolio. Each vendor had a sponsor inside the business. Each sponsor sat on at least one of the four AI steering committees. Each committee had a mandate to "guide AI strategy."
None had a mandate to make decisions. Approvals required consensus across committees. Consensus was rare. Twelve months of steering had produced twelve months of deliberation.
Strategy without accountability is decoration.
The AI strategy document was well-written. The innovation roadmap was ambitious. But nobody owned execution. The organisation had distributed responsibility so broadly that accountability had effectively dissolved.
Vendors filled the vacuum. They wrote briefs, ran workshops, and shaped priorities. The network was being managed by its suppliers.
Diagnosis in three weeks. Transition in eight.
Portfolio Inventory
Mapped all eleven vendor relationships, contract terms, and the internal teams touching each. Found three vendors providing functionally identical capability. Found two initiatives with no internal champion. Vendor-originated, vendor-sustained, never operationally owned.
Accountability Mapping
Interviewed each of the four steering committee chairs. Discovered no chair believed they had final authority. AI decisions were being escalated, debated, and deferred across committees. No initiative had received a decisive go or stop signal in twelve months.
Strategic Truth Audit Delivery
Delivered a board-ready diagnostic in week three. Named which vendors to exit, which capabilities to consolidate, and. Critically. Which executive role needed to own the AI portfolio. The recommendation was uncomfortable. The board accepted it without amendment.
Operating Model Transition
Supported the newly-appointed AI portfolio owner through transition. Dissolved the four committees. Consolidated eleven vendors to two, retaining one specialist and one platform provider. Established a direct reporting line and a quarterly board rhythm.
"We had a strategy document and a committee structure. What we did not have was anyone who could make a decision. GBW told us that clearly, and then helped us fix it."
Two vendors. One owner. A portfolio that can move.
Eleven vendors became two. Four committees were dissolved and replaced with a single AI portfolio owner reporting directly to the CEO. The board approved the transition without objection. The diagnostic had made the case clearly.
Within six months, the network had its first AI capability in production: an automated triaging workflow reducing administrative load on clinical coordinators. It was built with one of the two retained vendors, under the direct ownership of the new portfolio lead.
Too many vendors. Too many committees. No movement?
We find the signal in your AI portfolio and build the structure to act on it.