From Fragmented Firms to Unified Force: AI-Powered Collaboration at Scale

How a national consulting leader streamlined internal expertise discovery, boosted win  rates, and delivered $13M+ in ROI with a custom AI solution. 

Business Situation

After acquiring multiple firms, our client, a healthcare and human services consulting organization, faced a common challenge: incredible expertise across the company, but no efficient way to find and deploy it.

Consultants were spending hours trying to identify colleagues with relevant experience, credentials, or past project insight. Talent was siloed, collaboration limited, and teams risked reinventing the wheel on client work.

The existing approach — spreadsheet inventories, manual referrals, and or repeated internal queries — wasn’t sustainable. The client had already attempted a generic AI solution, but it failed to deliver. NRI stepped in to help modernize knowledge-sharing and align operations with the pace of growth.

This wasn’t about just swapping out a tool. It was about rethinking how collaboration and expertise alignment should work at scale. Together, the client and NRI set clear goals:

Cut time-to-expertise identification by 90%
Prove AI’s value internally and to investors
Increase utilization of specialist consultants
Operate as a unified, tech-forward organization
Improve collaboration across departments and acquired firms

Our Approach: 

NRI won the business after a previous vendor failed to deliver with a generic LLM approach. NRI’s experts brought something new to the table: 

  • Deep, real-world experience in AppDev, Cloud, and AI 
  • A proven AI accelerator framework 
  • A co-design approach focused on internal usability, not just features 

Within six weeks, NRI delivered a limited release of the project that proved value  immediately and hit the timing of a high-stakes board meeting.

The Impact NRI Delivered: 

What started as a project delivery quickly became a catalyst for meaningful change. 

  • $2.3M/year saved through productivity gains 
  • $11M+ increase in customer win rates 
  • 3–5x more cross-departmental collaboration 
  • 20% increase in consultant utilization 

Colleagues could now find internal experts in one 10th of the time. Teams collaborated  more effectively, new hires onboarded faster, and institutional knowledge became an  everyday asset. 

The client began operating as one connected organization instead of multiple fragmented  entities, and it showed in both delivery and internal morale.

What’s Next: 

With internal value proven, NRI is now helping the client extend the platform’s reach: 

  • Exploring client-facing AI apps to enhance service delivery 
  • Integrating more data sources for richer insights
  • Using AI-supported orchestration as a value-multiplier for private equity  stakeholders 

This wasn’t just about solving a knowledge problem. It laid the groundwork for AI-driven  growth across the business.

Capabilities Applied

AI-Driven Knowledge Discovery
Cross-Functional Implementation Support
Enterprise Collaboration Enablement
Custom AI App Development