Harwood IT · Solihull · The Secure AI Partner
The Secure AI Partner for West Midlands manufacturers and professional firms.
We help you win more work and deliver it faster. Your drawings, files and prices stay inside your own Microsoft 365. We measure the result against your own figures.
Accountant, solicitor or adviser? See how we help professional firms →
Trusted by 14 West Midlands manufacturers for 22 years.
A customer’s drawing arrives at 9:04.
- Bracket, 6082-T6 aluminium
- 250 off
- Drafted by Copilot
- Checked by your estimator
- Drafted
- Checked
- Sent
Quote in Hours to Win More Work.
For West Midlands manufacturers who lose jobs to slow quotes.
Target: under 2 hours per quote
Certified and accredited
Trusted by manufacturers and professional firms across the West Midlands
Customer names on this page are fictional.
The problem
Why slow quotes cost manufacturers work
An estimator spends about three and a half hours on a typical quote. Many customers place the order with whoever replies first. In one West Midlands manufacturer’s own quote log, fast quotes won 31% of the time. Slow quotes won 21%.
The fastest good quote often wins the order.
You will recognise these
Four things manufacturing directors tell us about AI
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“Our team already uses ChatGPT.”
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“I don’t know where our drawings end up.”
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“We bought Copilot. Hardly anyone uses it.”
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“Show me the number before I spend anything.”
Each of these has an answer inside the Microsoft tools you already pay for.
How your data stays yours
AI that works inside your own Microsoft 365
Your drawings, emails, price lists and job history stay in your own Microsoft 365. Copilot and Copilot Studio read them there. Microsoft Entra decides who can see what. Microsoft Purview labels sensitive files and stops them leaving. Microsoft Defender watches for threats. Nothing is pasted into a public AI tool.
- Drawings
- Emails
- Price lists
- Job history
- Your ERP
- Microsoft Entra
- Microsoft Purview
- Microsoft Defender
Public AI tool — blocked by Purview
We secure your data first. Then we switch on the AI.
Security, data and cloud
The checks we run before any AI is switched on
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Your data stays in the UK
We set up Microsoft 365 and Azure in UK data centres. Your files are not used to train public AI models.
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Watched day and night
Microsoft Defender and Microsoft Sentinel watch your systems 24 hours a day. We respond to critical alerts within 15 minutes.
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Backups we test
We back up Microsoft 365 and your servers every day. We test a full restore every month.
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Access checked first
Before Copilot goes live, we check who can open which files. We fix overshared folders first.
Security comes first in every project we run.
What it does
Six jobs AI can do in a manufacturing business
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Reads your drawings
Pulls sizes, materials and tolerances out of a drawing in seconds.
Microsoft Foundry
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Drafts the quote
Builds a first draft from your price lists for an estimator to check.
Microsoft 365 Copilot
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Answers from your job history
Finds how you priced a similar job last year.
Copilot Studio
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Reads, checks and routes enquiries
Sorts new enquiries and sends each one to the right person.
Copilot Studio
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Chases on a rule
Follows up quotes and approvals that have gone quiet.
Copilot Studio
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Finds patterns in your numbers
Shows which jobs, customers and machines make money.
Microsoft Fabric and Power BI
An estimator checks every quote before it goes out.
Professional services
AI for West Midlands accountants, solicitors and advisers
Your clients are asking whether their data ends up in public AI tools. We set up AI that keeps client files inside your firm’s own Microsoft 365. Your people draft letters, search past advice and prepare for meetings faster. Every answer links back to the file it came from.
Drafts client letters for a person to check.
Searches your past advice and precedents.
Prepares meeting notes from the client file.
Your clients’ files stay inside your firm.
Beyond the use cases
How we make sure AI pays back in your business
A good use case is only the start. We measure the impact, redesign the work and help your team use it every day.
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Measure the impact
We score each AI opportunity against five board measures: revenue, margin, capacity, speed and risk. You see which ones matter most to your growth and profit.
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Build the business case
Our Value Case Builder works in six stages: Baseline, Opportunity, Value, Change, Risk and Decision. Every figure comes from your own data.
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See it working first
We build a proof of concept on the opportunity with the biggest return, using your own data. You see it working before you agree to roll it out.
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Redesign how the work is done
We agree who does what after the change, which systems support them and who is accountable.
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Help your team use it
We train your people, set the rules for safe use and measure the result at 30 and 90 days. Then we keep improving it.
You pick the AI that pays back before you spend on the build.
How we work
The four steps from first conversation to a working system
Each step is a separate decision. You only buy the next step if the last one was worth it.
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Discover
Secure AI Opportunity Assessment
Free
A 45-minute one-to-one meeting. We find where AI may create value in your business, and whether it is worth looking into further.
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Envision
Secure AI Business Envisioning Workshop
£2,500
One day on site with your leadership team and the people who do the work. You get an agreed view of the business, a list of priorities, a shortlist of AI opportunities and a decision to proceed, wait or not invest.
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Design
Secure AI Business Case & Process Design
From £15,000
About four weeks. You get a redesigned process, a target operating model, a business case, a high-level solution design and proof requirements.
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Implement
Secure AI Implementation
Priced from the Design
We start with a proof of concept on one process. Then we build, secure and run the system, and measure the result against your own figures.
Prices exclude VAT.
You decide whether to invest before any money is spent on the build.
What it is worth
The business case for one West Midlands manufacturer
These figures come from one manufacturer’s own quote log and its own costs.
A year, after cautious discounts
about £85,000
Payback on £17,500 of advice
about two and a half months
Estimator hours per quote
3.5 → target under 2
Quote win rate
25% → target 27%
Time saved a year
£81,000
Profit on extra work won a year
£108,000
Worked example. Extra work is counted as profit at a 30% margin, not as revenue. Discounts at the model’s defaults: 75% adoption, 60% conversion. Only half of the win-rate rise in the quote log was counted.
We measure the result against your own figures, 30 and 90 days after launch.
Results
What changed for three of our customers
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Precision engineering · Redditch · 140 people
Quotes in under two hours
Copilot drafts each quote from the drawing and the price list. An estimator checks it before it goes out.
3.5 → 1.8 hours per quote, measured at 90 days
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Accountancy · Solihull · 45 people
Client letters drafted in minutes
Staff draft client letters from the client file in Microsoft 365. A partner checks each one. Client files never leave the firm.
6 hours saved per person each month
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Plastics moulding · Telford · 90 people
Ready for Copilot in six weeks
We found overshared folders, fixed access and labelled sensitive files with Microsoft Purview. Then we switched on Copilot.
1,200 overshared folders fixed before launch
Illustrative case studies for this demonstration.
Our IT services
The IT services underneath it all
Secure AI needs well-run IT underneath it. We run that IT for 31 businesses today.
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Managed IT and service desk
A UK service desk your team can call. We manage your devices, users and updates.
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Cyber security
Microsoft Defender, 24-hour monitoring, staff training and Cyber Essentials support.
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Microsoft 365 and Teams
Email, Teams, SharePoint and Intune, set up and managed for you.
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Cloud and Azure
Moves to Microsoft Azure, plus backup and disaster recovery.
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Data and reporting
Power BI and Microsoft Fabric reports built on clean, joined-up data.
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Microsoft licences
The right licences for your business, reviewed every year.
One partner for your IT, your security and your AI.
Who we are
A 28-person IT company in Solihull that used AI on its own quotes first
Harwood IT has looked after West Midlands businesses for 22 years. Jane Harwood runs the company. Dev Mistry leads the technical team. We started with our own quoting, using Microsoft 365 Copilot. We measured it before we offered it to anyone else.
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Jane Harwood, Managing Director
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Dev Mistry, Technical Director
Our certifications and Microsoft designations
Certifications
- Cyber Essentials Plus · renewed every year
- ISO/IEC 27001 · information security
- ISO 9001 · quality management
- ISO/IEC 42001 · AI management · certification in progress, due 2027
Microsoft
- Microsoft Solutions Partner for Modern Work
- Microsoft Solutions Partner for Security
- Microsoft Solutions Partner for Data & AI (Azure)
- Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider, through Ingram Micro
Certificates are available on request.
An industrial estate and a motorway at dusk, seen from the air.
Talk to us now
Ask our AI assistant about AI in your business
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The first step is free
Book a free Secure AI Opportunity Assessment
45 minutes, one to one, with the people who decide. We look at where AI may create value in your business, and whether it is worth looking into further. You leave with a straight answer.
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