Global executive search consultancy increases efficiency by over 60% with AI-powered transformationGlobal executive search consultancy increases efficiency by over 60% with AI-powered transformationGlobal executive search consultancy increases efficiency by over 60% with AI-powered transformation

Nearform partnered with a global advisory and consultancy firm that helps organisations build high-performing leadership teams.

Supporting clients in selecting and developing C-suite talent is at the heart of the firm’s mission. These engagements rely on deep human insight and intellectual rigour, delivered by a team of elite consultants with backgrounds from top-tier academic institutions.

The firm identified a strategic opportunity to improve the efficiency of these engagements. Its consultants were already delivering exceptional results. By equipping them with AI-powered tools that enhanced their human expertise, they could deliver the same high-calibre C-suite selection insights even more effectively.

Working with Nearform, the firm embarked on a collaborative journey that unlocked new capabilities for its consultants, boosted efficiency by 66% and delivered a SaaS platform — all while preserving the bespoke nature of its high-end services.

Each consultant uses their deep expertise to tailor their approach, according to their client's needs, when conducting assessments and creating reports. Providing the consultants with new tools would help them go even further and faster than they were already by:

• Accelerating report creation
• Streamlining data formatting and storing
• Expediting business-wide insight generation

The firm’s Chief Product Officer (CPO) saw an opportunity to harness AI to enhance their work. This would be achieved by building a platform that could support greater consistency, accelerate delivery and unlock even greater client value by allowing consultants to more easily tap into the firm's collective knowledge.

The firm engaged Nearform to make this a reality.

We put together an expert team of senior engineers and designers and co-designed a platform with the firm that’s focused on augmentation. It supports consultants in doing their best work by automating repetitive tasks, ensuring brand consistency and enabling more powerful insight generation.

We began by bringing together a cross-functional group (CPO, senior consultants, and stakeholders from strategy, branding and operations) for an Ignite discovery workshop. This ensured full alignment on consultant needs, business goals and client expectations.

By putting users and stakeholders at the heart of the discussions, our collaborative approach surfaced the following priorities for the platform:

• AI-enhanced reports: Branded templates and intelligent workflows to help consultants maintain their unique tone and individual expertise, while aligning to a shared standard.
• Centralised data management: A single repository to bring together historic and current assessment data for easy access and analysis.
• AI-powered automation: Automation to reduce the time spent on repetitive tasks, enabling faster delivery of high-quality insights.

The mission was to create a seamless digital experience for the consultants. By collaborating with them throughout its development, we built the consultants’ workflows and insights into the design. The result is a platform that’s intuitive, easy to use and made specifically for their day-to-day needs. These are the highlights of the new platform:

Marrying individual quality with brand consistency

Bespoke reports were often created in Word documents. We analysed thousands of past assessments to surface common patterns, then designed an AI-powered report builder that preserves individuality while aligning with brand guidelines.

Centralising data brings ease of access for everyone

All assessment data (past and present) is stored in one place. The centralised platform enables further insights, faster retrieval of information and a clearer picture of evolving leadership trends.

Automating report generation gives consultants more time for clients

Previously, report creation could take 45+ minutes per consultant. The new platform automates many of the underlying processes. This gives consultants more time for analysis and client engagement.

Increasing capabilities with AI-powered enhancements

The key goal of leveraging AI was to equip the firm’s elite consultants with the tools to make their outstanding service even better. This was achieved by developing AI-generated scorecards and creating AI-assisted mission statement generators.

The platform delivered new AI-powered capabilities, achieved a 60% adoption rate and enabled a 66% reduction in report generation time. All within a matter of months.

In addition to this, Nearform’s work with our partner created a revenue-generating asset. This was crystallised when the firm onboarded its first SaaS client. Thus, with the ability to license the technology, the company opened up a new revenue stream.

AI & Data

Intelligent apps

Streamlining data formatting and storing

Centralised data management 

AI-powered automation