How we work,
in plain terms.
Fixed scope per phase. Everything documented well enough to hand to somebody else. Every account in your name. No lock-in mechanisms of any kind — because a client who stays out of obligation rather than choice is a client we are about to lose anyway.
Seven rules we hold ourselves to
Every one of these exists because we watched the opposite go badly somewhere.
The process decision comes before the tool decision
If nobody can say what should happen when a lead arrives, no software will decide it for you. We force those decisions early and write them down. It is the least popular part of any project and the reason the rest works.
Build the smallest thing that proves the point
One pipeline, one automation, one AI use case — live and measured — beats a comprehensive design nobody has validated. Momentum comes from something working in week four, not from a complete specification in month three.
Documentation is a deliverable, not a courtesy
Field dictionary, flow diagrams, runbooks, recorded walkthroughs, exported blueprints. The test: could a competent new hire take this over in a week without calling us? If not, it is not finished.
Design for the failure, not the happy path
The API will rate-limit. The field will be empty. The duplicate will arrive. Someone will rename the dropdown. What separates a system from a demo is entirely what happens then.
Measure adoption, not delivery
A project is not successful because it shipped. It is successful because people use it three months later. We instrument that from week one and treat a decline as a defect in what we built, not a failure of your team's discipline.
Say no to work we would do badly
We turn down projects that need capabilities we do not have, that lack a decision-maker, or where the budget forces shortcuts we would be embarrassed by. A referral elsewhere costs us a project and saves both sides a bad one.
No lock-in, ever
Your accounts, your licences, your data, your documentation, our access removable in an afternoon. No agency-hosted middleware, no proprietary connector, no scripts that only run on our machines. Constraint, not courtesy.
We want to become optional
The best outcome of an engagement is a client whose team runs the system themselves and calls us for the next project rather than for maintenance. Retainers that exist because nobody else understands the build are a business model we deliberately do not have.
Five phases, each independently useful
You can stop after any phase and still own something that stands on its own. That is deliberate — it keeps the risk on us to earn the next one.
| Phase | Duration | What we do | What you own afterwards |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Diagnose | 1–2 weeks | Interviews across sales, marketing, delivery and back office. Tool and data inventory. Process mapping including every workaround. Sample data extraction to assess real quality. | Systems audit, data-quality report, target architecture, prioritised backlog with effort and impact per item |
| 2. Design | 1–2 weeks | Data model, field dictionary, pipeline and stage definitions, automation flow specifications, integration contracts, access model, reporting model. Reviewed and signed off before any build. | A design document detailed enough for any competent implementer — including one who is not us |
| 3. Build | 3–8 weeks | Implementation in your own accounts, in weekly increments you can see working. Staging first, migration dry runs with reconciliation, error handling and monitoring on everything. | Production system, runbooks, exported blueprints, monitoring and alerting |
| 4. Adopt | 2–4 weeks | Role-based training, daily operating rhythm per role, recorded walkthroughs for future onboarding, adoption instrumentation, a thirty-day review with fixes. | Enablement pack, recorded training library, adoption dashboard |
| 5. Operate | Ongoing, optional | Monitoring and incident response, a monthly iteration budget, quarterly review against the original backlog, and a roadmap for the next phase. | An agreed response commitment, monthly reporting, continuous improvement — cancellable on short notice |
How we charge
Three models, chosen by what fits the work. We will tell you which one applies before you ask.
Fixed-scope phase
Our default for Diagnose, Design and Build. Scope, deliverables, acceptance criteria and price agreed up front. Changes are quoted as change requests rather than absorbed silently and then argued about at the end.
- You know the number before we start
- Overrun risk sits with us, which is a good incentive for accurate scoping
- Payment split across milestones, not demanded up front
Monthly operations retainer
For clients who want us to keep running and improving what we built. Sized to automation volume and change rate, with a defined included capacity and a response commitment.
- Monitoring, incident response, small changes included
- Larger changes quoted separately so the retainer does not quietly become a queue
- Short notice period — no annual lock-in
Advisory day rate
For architecture reviews, second opinions, vendor selection, or supporting an internal team doing the build themselves. Bought in blocks of days and used when you need them.
- Useful when you have capable people and need direction rather than hands
- Includes the same written output as any other engagement
- Frequently the cheapest way to de-risk a decision you are about to make
What working together looks like
- One senior contact throughout. The person who scopes it builds it. No account manager relaying requirements, no junior learning on your budget.
- Weekly rhythm. A thirty-minute call with what shipped, what is next, and what we need from you. A written summary after every one, so decisions are on record.
- Your channels. A shared Slack or Teams channel for anything that does not need a meeting. Replies within a business day, faster during a build.
- Time zones. We are four hours ahead of Central European Time in summer and three in winter, which in practice means we start earlier than you and overlap all afternoon. Meetings run in your working hours.
- On site when it matters. Kickoff workshops and training work far better in a room. We travel for those; the rest is remote and more efficient for it.
- Languages. Project delivery, documentation and meetings in English or German. Client-facing material we build for you is produced in whichever language your market needs.
How we handle your systems
- Named accounts, never shared logins. Each of us gets an individual account with the least privilege the work requires, revocable independently.
- Multi-factor authentication everywhere, on every client system and on our own.
- Credentials in a password manager, shared through it rather than over chat or email, and rotated at handover.
- Production data stays in production. We work with anonymised or sampled data in development wherever the task allows it.
- Access removed at project end as a checklist item, with confirmation to you — not left dormant for years.
- Written agreements before data. An NDA and, where we process personal data on your behalf, a Data Processing Agreement — signed before we get access, not after.
A UAE company serving German and EU clients
Loki Solutions CWD LLC is licensed in Sharjah Media City Free Zone. That is a completely normal arrangement for cross-border professional services, and here is exactly how it works in practice.
Contract and invoicing
You contract with a licensed UAE entity, invoiced in EUR or USD as you prefer, payable by bank transfer to a UAE account. For services supplied to a German business, the reverse-charge mechanism generally applies — we invoice without VAT and you self-account for it. Your tax adviser confirms the treatment for your specific circumstances; we provide whatever documentation they need.
Data protection
Where we process personal data on your behalf we act as a processor and sign a Data Processing Agreement. The UAE has no EU adequacy decision, so transfers are covered by Standard Contractual Clauses together with a documented transfer impact assessment and appropriate supplementary measures. We also operate under the UAE's own data protection framework.
Keeping the footprint small
The structural answer is better than the paperwork one: in most engagements we work inside your tenancy — your Close workspace, your Make organisation, your cloud accounts, your storage. Data stays where you already chose to put it, we hold no separate copy, and the processing footprint stays deliberately minimal by design.
Full company details are on the imprint page. Our processing practices are described in the privacy policy.
Start with the call that costs nothing.
Thirty minutes. Describe where the process breaks and we will tell you what we would build, in what order, and roughly what it costs — regardless of whether we end up doing it.