Most AI projects in mid-sized companies fail because they start too ambitiously. Building your own language model? Hopeless. A ChatGPT integration for everything? Burns money. Here are the 5 applications we have successfully implemented at mid-sized businesses — with measurable ROI.
1. Invoice OCR with Automated Booking Suggestions
What it does: Incoming invoices are scanned or captured via email. An AI extracts the supplier, amount, VAT rate and booking account, then proposes a ready-made accounting entry. Your staff simply confirm.
ROI: At 500 documents per month, this saves 25–40 hours of bookkeeping time. Scaled up to a part-time position, that's roughly €1,500–2,500 in staff costs per month. Setup is typically €8,000–15,000 one-off, with payback in 4–8 months.
Risks: Minimal — booking suggestions are always confirmed by a human. Highly customised chart-of-accounts setups may require some training.
2. Contract Analysis for Compliance & Risk
What it does: Incoming contracts (supply, service, NDA agreements) are automatically screened for risk clauses: liability limitations, notice periods, presence obligations, exclusivity carve-outs. Results are delivered as a traffic-light report.
ROI: For B2B mid-sized companies handling 200–500 contracts a year, this replaces half a legal FTE. Setup €12,000–25,000, payback in 6–12 months.
Risks: AI review is not legally binding — it's an excellent first screening, but decisions ready for signature still require a lawyer's sign-off.
3. Customer Enquiry Triage
What it does: Incoming emails and tickets are automatically categorised (quote request, complaint, technical question, routine). Frequent enquiries are answered directly (with confirmation); complex ones are routed to the right department.
ROI: At 1,000 enquiries per month: a 30–50% reduction in caseworker volume. Response times cut in half. Setup €10,000–20,000, payback in 6 months.
Risks: Tone of voice must match the brand, and escalation paths for sensitive cases must be in place.
4. Custom RAG Assistants (Retrieval-Augmented Generation)
What it does: An AI assistant that accesses your own documents (contracts, manuals, FAQs, knowledge base) and answers employees' questions. "What does our supply agreement with Schmitz Cargobull say about contractual penalties?" — answered in 5 seconds instead of 30 minutes.
ROI: For every employee with knowledge-intensive work, 30–60 minutes saved per day. With 50 employees at an hourly rate of €50: €1,000–2,000 per day. Setup €15,000–40,000, payback in 2–4 months.
Risks: Data silos must be consolidated upfront. Updates are required whenever documents change.
5. Forecasting Models for Sales and Inventory
What it does: Expected sales are forecast from sales history, seasonality, marketing activity and external factors (weather, economic conditions). Ordering is optimised automatically.
ROI: For mid-sized consumer goods companies, typically 15–25% fewer out-of-stock events and 10–20% lower inventory levels. For a €5m warehouse: €500,000–1,000,000 in freed-up liquidity.
Risks: Data quality decides everything. A clean sales history covering 24+ months is a prerequisite.
These are narrow use cases, not "AI for everything". They solve one concrete problem with measurable ROI. They run on existing data. They replace routine work, not creativity. That is precisely the difference between successful AI deployment and an expensive showcase.
What does NOT work (in mid-sized companies)
- Building your own LLM: Too expensive (eight figures), too slow, no competitive advantage.
- "Let AI design my business model": AI is a tool, not a substitute for strategy.
- ChatGPT with customer data: GDPR problem, data leakage. A dedicated EU-compliant solution is required.
- Generic marketing content: Works in the short term, damages your brand in the long run.
How we work at TABAK
Every AI project at TABAK begins with a 2-week readiness assessment: Which use cases deliver the highest impact in your business? Where does the data sit? What will the solution cost? Based on that analysis, we jointly decide on a pilot — and within 6–8 weeks you see the first productive results.
More than 20 years advising entrepreneurs, investors and family businesses. Reserved tax services are provided by our partner tax firm, TABAK Steuerberatung.
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We analyse which of the 5 use cases will deliver the fastest ROI in your business — and provide a realistic roadmap.