Challenge

As our client expanded and scaled its operations, managing Microsoft licensing across multiple departments became increasingly complex. They needed a more efficient way to streamline their licensing processes, ensure compliance, and optimise costs—without disrupting daily operations. The internal IT team raised concerns about the lack of visibility around Windows Server and SQL licensing requirements, the risk of over-subscription, potential penalties from under-licensing, and the challenge of staying current with Microsoft’s evolving licensing structure.

Solution

9X5 Consulting stepped in to assess our client’s existing Microsoft Windows Server and SQL licensing structure and operational needs. Our team conducted a comprehensive licensing audit to ensure full compliance, while also identifying opportunities for significant cost savings. We delivered a tailored Microsoft licensing solution and optimised their existing licensing model to better align with their business requirements. The new approach not only simplified ongoing license management but also included strategic recommendations to their Windows Server and SQL architecture, ensuring they were operating on the most cost-effective and compliant plan.

Impact

By partnering with 9X5 Consulting, our client successfully streamlined their Microsoft licensing management, achieving both compliance and operational efficiency. The engagement resulted in cost savings of approximately $300,000 by reducing over-licensing and optimising their Microsoft spend. The simplified licensing structure also empowered the internal IT team to move away from time-consuming administrative tasks and focus on more strategic, value-adding initiatives.

Challenge

Our client, a national power grid services provider, was managing hundreds of contracts across multiple departments. Like many large organisations, they faced difficulties keeping track of key terms, clauses and obligations. The process was highly manual, time-consuming and often inconsistent, which increased the risk of error and made it hard to scale effectively. They needed a smarter, more reliable way to extract and summarise information from their contracts, without adding to the team’s workload or creating new layers of complexity.

Solution

The client first engaged 9X5 Consulting to carry out a security assessment and identify any weaknesses in their systems. After seeing the depth and quality of our approach, they decided to continue working with us to support a broader digital transformation across their business.

We started by improving their cyber security. This included installing a firewall, introducing endpoint protection, and setting up video surveillance for real-time visibility across critical areas.

Next, we implemented conferencing tools to help their teams collaborate more easily, no matter where they were located.

To address the contract management challenges, we rolled out an AI-powered system using Microsoft Syntex and GPT-4. The process is simple but powerful:

• Smart Extraction: Syntex reads and extracts key details from contracts with 90% accuracy

• Auto Summaries: Important data is pulled into a clear one-page summary

• GPT-4 and AutoFill: AI fills in summaries consistently, reducing the need for manual work

This helped streamline their contract processes and free up time for more valuable tasks.

Impact

The improvements have been significant. The client has increased their contract summary output from around six to seven per day to three to four per hour. This represents an estimated 500 per cent boost in productivity. The summaries are now clause-referenced, consistently formatted and ready for use. The Contracts team is in the final stages of completing summaries for all existing executed contracts. With the system now transitioning into production, the client is also exploring opportunities to expand this AI-driven approach into other areas of the business such as engineering and operations.

“9X5 provide consistent high standards of service with equivalent levels of professionalism. From improving the security of our systems, to the implementation of upgraded VoIP services, 9X5 demonstrate a commitment to customer satisfaction that has greatly helped our company evolve its function to match modern business needs.”

James Fitzgerald

General Manager

“Partnering with 9X5 on our AI Contracts Summary Project has been a game-changer. Thanks to their team’s technical expertise and collaborative approach, we’ve trained a Microsoft Syntex model that now achieves 90% accuracy, transforming a previously manual task into a high-speed, consistent process. With the integration of GPT-4 and AutoFill, our team went from producing 6–7 summaries per day to 3–4 per hour, an estimated 500% boost in productivity.”

Contracts Assistant