Industrial group
case studyConsolidating 8 brands onto a single ERP in 12 months.
8 → 1
ERP estates consolidated
fractional CIO
Fractional CIO for SMEs ready to use AI seriously.
I help UK SMEs at £2–50M revenue turn AI from a buzzword into shipped systems — agentic where it matters, plain code where it doesn’t.
intro
I'm Richard Sanderson — fractional CIO.
I work with growing SMEs on the technology decisions that actually move the business — ERP strategy, AI deployment, vendor management, the lot. I currently lead tech for a multi-brand industrial group, helping 8 brands across multiple continents. The last three years have been rebuilding tech stacks, shipping agentic systems in production, and pulling costs out of the business.
The consultancy is what I do outside of that. Fewer clients, longer relationships, real outcomes — not retainers that quietly run for years without changing anything.
what I do
Three things, done seriously.
01
AI consulting
From AI readiness audits through to shipping agentic systems in production. Less ‘ChatGPT for X’, more ‘here’s the system, here are the guardrails, here’s the ROI.’
live in 90 daysdiscovery to deployed
02
SEO + AIO
Technical SEO and answer engine optimisation, run by someone who builds the systems being audited. For B2B sites where AI Overviews are eating traffic.
+38%organic traffic, 6 months
03
Fractional CIO
Strategic IT leadership for £5–50M operating businesses — ERP strategy, vendor management, AI deployment, board-level reporting. Embedded, not consulting from a deck.
20–40 hrs/monthtypical engagement
selected work
Recent engagements.
currently
£0M+
group revenue under tech leadership
0
brands worked alongside
0
countries · multi-continent operations
Live
agentic systems in production
brands I’ve worked with
- Operating brand 01
- Operating brand 02
- Operating brand 03
- Operating brand 04
- B2B commerce
- AI operations
implementation
Turning existing business data into a custom AI agent.
Historical data, images, documents, CRM, and ERP become a clean knowledge layer, then a narrow agent with guardrails, review, and audit.
01
Feed trusted sources
02
Shape retrieval
03
Deploy the agent
writing
What I’ve been thinking about.
Ready to use AI seriously?
A 30-minute call. No deck, no follow-up nurture sequence. I'll tell you whether I can help.