Strategy and consulting
Where a transformation starts, fractional leaders and PMOs, architecture reviews, discovery workshops, blueprints and how consulting begins.
37 questions
Where should a transformation start?
With the processes and journeys that matter most to your customers and your business, such as onboarding, payments or getting help. Starting with a few shows results sooner than mapping everything at once.
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Can you align the programme with a national vision?
Yes. For ministries and public authorities, we align the strategy, programmes and measures with the national digital transformation agenda, such as Vision 2030. Paperless e-government services are planned around it.
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How is customer experience different from UX design?
UX design improves a product’s screens and interactions. Customer experience covers the whole relationship across every channel, including calls, branches, emails and bills. The cause is often a policy, a hand-off or a missing integration, not a screen.
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How do you measure customer experience?
With a small set of measures agreed before work starts. They combine what customers say, such as satisfaction and effort, with what they do, such as completion, drop-offs and repeat contacts. Each is reported against a baseline.
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What does human-on-the-loop mean for our staff?
AI takes on routine steps, and people supervise the results and handle the exceptions. We redesign roles, training and controls around that, so staff move to higher-value work and stay accountable for outcomes.
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What if the problem is in our systems rather than our processes?
Then we fix it there. Many customer problems come from systems that do not share data, such as a CRM that cannot see orders or payments. Our integration engineers connect them, so the new journey works end to end.
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How do you make sure the plan is put into practice?
Each improvement has an owner, a measure and a date agreed with your teams. Our advisers stay accountable through execution, and our engineering divisions can build the changes in your channels and systems.
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Which leadership roles can you fill?
A virtual chief technology officer (CTO), chief digital and transformation officer (CDTO), chief AI officer (CAIO) or virtual chief information security officer (vCISO). We match the role to the decisions you face.
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When does a fractional leader make sense?
When you need senior judgement now, but not a full-time hire yet. Typical moments are a platform choice, an AI programme, a security incident, a stalled programme or the gap before a permanent leader joins.
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Is your advice independent of the products you recommend?
Yes. Recommendations follow your requirements, including when buying a product fits better than building one. Every recommendation comes with its options and reasons in writing.
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Our programme is failing. Where do you start?
With the facts. We review the scope, code, data, contracts and team, then tell you plainly whether to rescue, refactor or rebuild. For a live system, the Brownfield Diagnostic Bridge does this before any fixed-price proposal.
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Can you set up a PMO for us?
Yes. We set up an enterprise PMO with agile delivery, milestone governance, risk logs and reporting. Progress is shown in working software and live demonstrations, never only in status slides.
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Will the fractional leader work with our existing teams and vendors?
Yes. The role leads your people and holds vendors to their commitments. Where you need more capacity, our engineering divisions can add it, but the leader’s advice does not depend on it.
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What happens when we hire a permanent leader?
We hand over the decisions taken, the records behind them and the open risks, and we brief your new leader. The engagement can end there, or continue as advisory support.
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What is TOGAF, and do we need it?
TOGAF is a widely used framework for enterprise architecture. We use its methods to describe your business, data, applications and technology consistently. You do not need to adopt TOGAF yourself to benefit from the review.
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What does a high-availability audit look at?
The systems that must not stop: their redundancy, failover, backups, dependencies and monitoring. We look for single points of failure, test assumptions where we can and rank each finding by risk.
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We depend on one cloud provider. Can you help us leave?
Yes. We design a vendor exit strategy: which workloads move, in what order, onto which platforms and at what risk. Portable infrastructure and open standards keep the next move cheaper than this one.
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Why does architecture matter for AI agents?
Agents call your systems, so they need defined tools, permissions and audit trails. A multi-agent blueprint sets how agents reach data and each other, before they are given access to production systems.
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What do we receive at the end of a review?
A written assessment of your current architecture, a target architecture, an integration blueprint, a phased roadmap and the decision records behind them. You own all of it once each milestone is paid.
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Can you help deliver the architecture afterwards?
Yes. Our engineering, integration, cloud and security divisions can build it, and our architects stay involved to govern the build. You can also hand the blueprint to another team, because it uses vendor-neutral standards.
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Who is the assessment for?
For executives who must decide where to invest in AI: chief executives, chief digital, data and AI officers, and boards. It suits organisations starting out and those whose pilots have stalled.
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What will we have at the end?
A maturity assessment, a ranked list of use cases, a token-economics model, a roadmap with agreed measures of return and a proposal for the first pilot. You own all of it once each milestone is paid.
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Are we committed to XSIS for the work that follows?
No. The roadmap and specifications use vendor-neutral standards, so any capable team can deliver them. If you choose us, our AI and data engineers build what the roadmap recommends.
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Do you give legal advice?
No. Your legal and compliance teams decide how the rules apply to you. We work with them to turn those decisions into systems, controls and evidence that an auditor can check.
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We operate in several countries. Can one design satisfy them all?
Often, much of it can. We map the requirements of each country side by side and design shared controls where they overlap. Where rules differ, such as on data residency, the design handles each case.
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When do we need discovery rather than a proposal?
When you know the outcome you want but not the screens, workflows, integrations or stack. If you already have a clear RFP or specification, we can go straight to a proposal instead.
Read more: Workshops, product discovery and POCsLink to this question
What do we receive at the end? (Workshops, product discovery and POCs)
You receive a Ready-to-Build Blueprint Pack of 6 deliverables: the product and functional specification, the architecture and technology stack blueprint, the integration and data contract specification, an interactive UI prototype, the security and regulatory matrix, and a binding fixed-price build proposal. You own 100% of the blueprint once the fee is paid, written in vendor-agnostic standards you can use with XSIS or with another provider.
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Is the blueprint fee credited if XSIS builds it?
Yes. 100% of the Blueprint fee is credited toward the build when you choose XSIS to build it. The credit is valid for 60 calendar days after the blueprint is delivered, for a build contract of at least 8× the Blueprint fee. The credit is applied through a milestone credit note.
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Can we see something working before we commit?
Yes. Clickable wireframes let stakeholders test the product. For complex AI or core systems, we also build a working proof of concept in a sandbox before the build is priced.
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We are a public body bound by tender rules. Can you still help?
Yes. For ministries bound by conflict-of-interest rules, the work is structured as a pre-commercial feasibility study and POC pilot, or under a design-build prime contract.
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Who from our side should join the workshops?
A sponsor who can make decisions, the people who own the business processes, and your technical leads for systems, data and security. We map the stakeholders with you at the start.
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How is your consulting different from a management consultancy?
Our advisers stay accountable through execution. The practice is led by principal enterprise architects, fractional CTOs and CAIOs, and regulatory specialists, not consultants who hand over slides and leave. Every blueprint is written so that engineers can build it.
What do we receive at the end? (Strategy & Consulting)
Documents you can act on and procure from. They include an architecture and a roadmap, use cases ranked by expected return, the regulations that apply, and specifications ready for a tender or a build.
Is your advice independent of vendors?
Yes. Blueprints are written in vendor-agnostic standards, and they include exit strategies where you are locked in to a vendor. When we compare platforms, we show the reasons for each recommendation so you can check them.
Do we have to hire XSIS to build what you design?
No. You own the blueprint, and any capable team can build from it. If you choose XSIS for the build, the consulting fee is credited under the terms in your proposal.
Do you work with government ministries?
Yes. We guide public authorities through national digital transformation agendas. Where tender law limits who may advise and then build, we structure the work as a feasibility study and pilot, or as a design-build contract.
How does a consulting engagement start?
With a free online session and a readiness review led by a principal architect. If your requirements are clear, you receive a proposal. If not, the Blueprint Studio turns your goal into a full specification first.
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Start with a conversation, not a contract.
Tell us what you need to build, connect or secure. An architect goes through it with you, then recommends where to start.
What happens next
Agreeing a time
Our team emails you to agree a time for the session.
Pre-consulting session
A free 30-minute online pre-consulting session: we go through your goals, systems and constraints.
Readiness review
In a free 48-hour readiness review, a Principal Architect checks your project against the 6-point Definition of Ready and recommends the track that fits.
Choosing the track
Scope-ready projects receive a binding proposal within 3–5 business days. Concept-stage projects start in the Blueprint Studio. A live system that is failing, undocumented or needs integration starts with a diagnostic of 1–2 weeks. The Blueprint Studio and the diagnostic each have a fixed fee, quoted in the proposal.