Independent AI and business systems consulting

An AI and business systems consultant helps a business choose, connect and use its software, from the ERP, e-shop and CRM to e-invoicing and AI tools. Each decision ends with a written recommendation: the options, their cost over three years, how they fit your current systems, where your data goes and what could go wrong.

FDesign charges €65 an hour, excluding VAT. A second opinion on a software quote costs €195, a systems and AI roadmap starts at €590, a team AI session costs €260 and the monthly advisor plan costs €130 for two hours a month. The first 20-minute call is free.

A decision call needs the 45 minutes of the call and a few minutes to send your documents. A second opinion needs the quote and the 30-minute call at the end. A roadmap takes about three hours of your team's time over two weeks, spread across a few calls.

No. The 20 minutes are for hearing the decision and telling you whether paid advice is worth it. If a short answer settles the question, you get the short answer, and nothing is booked unless you ask for it.

No. No software vendor pays me a commission or a referral fee, so the recommendation depends only on your situation. If the best option is something I could build, the recommendation says so openly and is written so that any developer can carry it out.

Then that is the recommendation, with the reasons. Keeping what you have is a real option, and the advice always prices it alongside the others.

Often it does not, and that is worth knowing before the money goes out. Surveys of company leaders in Cyprus and across Europe keep finding that most businesses see no measurable change in revenue or cost from their first AI projects, usually because a tool was chosen before the problem was defined. The advice starts from the task, the hours it takes and what an error costs, then says whether AI, a plain rule or no change at all is the cheapest way to fix it.

The process audit measures where hours and errors go inside your processes and ranks what to automate. Consulting answers a specific decision, such as which system to choose, which AI tool to use or whether to sign a quote. The two work well together: the audit finds where the time goes, and consulting settles the system decisions around it.

It depends on what the ERP can do today. If it offers web services and handles your invoice types and VAT rules, connecting it to the e-shop usually costs far less than replacing it. Replacement is worth pricing when support for your version is ending, the licence no longer fits your size, or the ERP cannot work with your e-invoicing route.

It depends on where your email and files already live and on what data your staff will put in. Copilot works inside Microsoft 365 and Gemini inside Google Workspace, while ChatGPT stands apart from both. Plans differ in price, in data protection and in whether data can stay in the EU, so the choice is made per plan, not per brand.

Only on a business plan with the right settings, and only for data your privacy notice covers. The business plans of the main tools state that your data is not used to train their models, while free and personal plans work differently. Where data is stored and processed also depends on the plan, so the consulting sets out which data may go into which tool.

For most small businesses, two things matter today. Staff who use AI need a basic understanding of it, built through proportionate steps such as a short training session and clear usage rules, with no certificate required. And a chatbot on your website must make clear that it is an AI. Stricter rules for high-risk uses, such as screening job applicants, apply from 2 December 2027.

It already is for businesses whose 2023 revenue passed €1 million, from 2 March 2026. Every other business in Greece comes under the rules on 1 October 2026, the older ways of issuing stay allowed beside them until 31 December 2026, and from 1 January 2027 the electronic invoice is the only one that counts. Businesses that start on 1 October also have to declare how their invoices will be sent, within the first days of that month.

Not always. Greek B2B e-invoices can go through a certified provider, including the services some ERP vendors run, or through the free applications of AADE, the Greek tax authority. An ERP on its own does not count as a route, and whichever one you pick has to be declared. Which fits depends on how many invoices you issue and on the system that issues them: if invoices come out of an e-shop or an ERP, a provider connected to it usually saves re-typing. Your accountant confirms the tax side.

Sometimes, though not through an AI programme at the moment. The Greek and Cypriot schemes that paid for software and consulting for small businesses have closed, and some general business calls still treat digital costs as eligible. When a call that fits opens, the roadmap gives you the technical scope and the costs an application needs. I do not prepare grant applications myself, and the paperwork stays with your accountant or a grants consultant.

Yes. Quotes, contracts and details of your systems are used only for your review and go to nobody else. Nothing about your business is published or used as an example without your written permission, and a non-disclosure agreement can be signed before you send anything.

Yes. Consulting runs over video calls, in Greek or English, for businesses in Greece, Cyprus and any other country. The work is remote from the first call to the written recommendation, so where your business sits changes nothing except the hours that suit the call. Businesses elsewhere in the EU with a VAT number are invoiced under the reverse charge, so no Greek VAT is added.