Portfolio & Capabilities

Applied AI and systems for small and medium businesses.

We consult, build, support, maintain and educate, starting with the problem and putting AI to work only where it pays. The case studies below are anonymised and drawn from the founders' professional track records.

Get my free AI Roadmap Download portfolio (PDF)

Business cases

Proof, drawn from the founders' work.

Six anonymised case studies showing the range The Margin Labs covers, from AI operating systems to ERP transformation.

The AI Operating System

Challenge

An 8-figure DTC brand was drowning in fragmented information across messaging, email, calendars and a dozen spreadsheets. Decisions waited on someone stitching the picture together by hand.

What was built

A unified AI operating system: a knowledge layer wired to 15-plus tools, 40-plus custom skills, and scheduled automations that read across the business and write daily and weekly executive briefings.

Outcome

15+ tools unified
40+ skills in production
Reviews fully automated
Hours of synthesis to minutes

Professional Services ERP

ERP

Challenge

A global professional-services firm needed a clear route from fragmented requirements to a coherent ERP plan, with confidence on scope, sequence, data migration and adoption risk.

What was built

Led discovery and solution shaping across business processes, ERP module mapping, GAP analysis, MVP definition and a phased roadmap, built around native-first configuration and business-readable effort.

Outcome

Clear phased roadmap
Scope confidence for leadership
Native-first delivery
Governed go-live plan

Unified KPI Command Center

Data

Challenge

Key metrics lived in six spreadsheets owned by different people on different cadences. Consolidated reporting was a manual weekly grind with no on-demand view.

What was built

A KPI intelligence layer: specialised skills pulling live data from all six sources, covering supply chain, finance, service and growth across four trading entities, orchestrated into one view.

Outcome

6 sources unified
4 entities consolidated
Hours to on-demand
One-request snapshot

AI-Assisted Delivery & Requirements

AI + ERP

Challenge

Discovery information was high-volume, inconsistent and hard to convert into delivery-ready backlog items, slowing every ERP implementation down.

What was built

Redesigned requirements collection using AI voice-to-text, trained model workflows and structured prompts, translating stakeholder language into Gherkin-style user stories, acceptance criteria and tasks.

Outcome

Faster backlog creation
Traceable requirements
Clearer client validation
Practical AI, not novelty

Customer Service AI

Challenge

Support volume swung three to five times higher in peak season. Scaling headcount for the peaks was slow and expensive, and quality slipped under pressure.

What was built

A customer-service AI strategy and tooling stack: response automation, AI triage and storefront chatbot integration, all chosen against clear ROI criteria so a lean team could absorb the spikes.

Outcome

3 to 5x volume absorbed
No added headcount
Faster responses
ROI-led tool choice

Retail Scaling & Commercial Growth

Commercial

Challenge

Two growth problems, years apart: a retail business that needed to scale, and a consulting practice that needed a commercial engine built from the ground up.

What was built

As Managing Director, scaled retail turnover from roughly GBP 200k to GBP 500k. As head of business development at an ERP consultancy, built a sales function and go-to-market, overseeing GBP 1.65m of revenue.

Outcome

£200k → £500k retail
£1.65m revenue overseen
Sales team built
ERP Gold Partner

What we do

Services that pay for themselves.

Six ways we help, from a single diagnostic to ongoing technology leadership. Every one starts with the problem, not the tool.

AI Opportunity Audit

Start here

A focused review of your processes, systems and reporting that shows exactly where AI and automation will pay, and where they will not, before you spend.

Process & Operating Model

Remove duplication and process debt before new software is introduced. Roles, ownership, governance and data discipline that make growth repeatable.

AI-Ready Systems Design

Designing the data, integration and workflow layer your business needs before AI can compound. Stack-agnostic, native-first, adoption-aware.

AI & Automation Builds

Agentic automation, custom AI skills, integrations and workflow automation that take the repetitive work off your team's plate, end to end.

KPI & Reporting Automation

Live dashboards and on-demand reporting that pull from every source into one trusted view, so decisions move at the speed of the business.

Fractional CTO & AI Leadership

Senior technology direction, roadmap governance, vendor challenge and board-level decision support, without the cost of a full-time hire.

How we work

One continuous cycle.

Every engagement runs the same loop, drawing on both founders' delivery methods. You see working output inside the first cycle, usually within two weeks, and we never stop at "done". Each pass compounds on the last.

Discover

Map the expensive manual work, the data and the tools. Find where the hours and the money actually go.

Plan

Prioritise by leverage and design the solution. Agree the highest-impact build and what success looks like.

Develop

Build the automation or system in tight increments, so progress is visible the whole way through.

Test

Validate against real cases and edge cases before go-live, so what ships is trusted from day one.

Implement

Ship to production with the documentation and training the team needs to actually adopt it.

Improve

Measure the impact, refine what is live, and feed the learnings straight back into the next Discover.

Track record

What the founders have done.

The Margin Labs is new. These numbers are not. They are the real, combined track record we bring to your business.

Operations, AI and technology

£65m

B2B distribution business built from zero, in four years.

3 to 5x

Peak support volume absorbed with no extra hires.

20+ yrs

Operations, finance and IT across e-commerce, paper, logistics, SaaS.

Systems, commercial and delivery

£1.65m

Project and services revenue overseen at an ERP consultancy.

Practice sales scaled from a £200k baseline.

2.5x

Retail business scaled as Managing Director (£200k to £500k).

The team

Two founders, one operating model.

Two technologists who cover AI and operations end to end: one who builds the AI, one who architects the systems around it. Between us we cover the whole path from a messy operational problem to a working system the business can run on.

Nuno Neto

Co-founder · AI, Operations, Finance & Technology

nuno@themarginlabs.com

Nuno is a broad technologist and COO-level operator with more than 20 years building and scaling businesses across e-commerce, paper, logistics, SaaS and IT. He grew a B2B distribution business from zero to £65m in four years, and has led finance, operations and IT through repeated transformations. Today he builds and runs AI operating systems inside a real 8-figure consumer-goods business, so his work targets real leverage rather than shiny features.

What they bring

Outcomes, not activity. He has taken a business from zero to £65m, added £7.5m of cash flow across 12 markets, lifted operational efficiency by 25% and customer retention by 20%, and absorbed seasonal support spikes of three to five times volume with no extra hires. Today he builds AI operating systems that turn hours of manual reporting and admin into minutes.

£65mbuilt from zero
+£7.5mcash flow
+25%efficiency
3 to 5xvolume, no new hires
20+ yrscross-industry

Luke Austin

Co-founder · AI, Operations & Technology

luke@themarginlabs.com

Luke is a business technologist, ERP architect and former Managing Director with 20 years across retail operations, logistics, procurement, compliance and quality assurance. Before moving deeper into ERP and digital transformation, he ran and scaled a retail business, growing turnover from roughly GBP 200k to GBP 500k.

What they bring

As head of business development at an ERP consultancy, he grew the practice from a GBP 200k sales baseline and Silver partner status to GBP 1.65m in project, consultancy and services revenue oversight, and Gold partner status with a leading ERP platform. He leads discovery, GAP analysis, solution design and phased ERP roadmaps, builds the commercial and operating-model structure around them, and has since been promoted to lead project delivery.

£1.65mrevenue overseen
£200k → 500kretail scaling
ERP Gold PartnerFeb 2026
Former MD
ERP & operating-model design

Know exactly where AI pays before you commit a budget.

Start with a focused AI Opportunity Audit. We map the highest-leverage automation and systems work in your business, with no obligation.

Get my free AI Roadmap