Integrated Global Services Mitigates Up to $4M in Contract Risk and Recaptures 3 Days a Month in Finance with GSD at Work's AI Action Workshops
PE-backed industrial services leader saves an estimated $70,000 in software costs and cuts new-hire attrition by 70% by embedding an action-oriented AI adoption framework.
Quick Overview
- Client
- Integrated Global Services (IGS)
- Industry
- Industrial Surface Protection Services
- Challenge
- Growth constrained by time-intensive manual processes, critical "tribal knowledge" trapped in organizational silos, and a natural caution toward adopting new technologies under a mandate for aggressive EBITDA expansion.
- Solution
- GSD at Work deployed a series of rapid, targeted "AI Action Workshops," coaching IGS teams to solve specific departmental bottlenecks, creating internal AI champions and building viral adoption momentum from the ground up.
- Date
- December 2025
Key Results
- $186,000 quantified in annual savings from reduced new-hire attrition
- $1-4 million in potential savings from mitigated contractual risk
- 2-3 days/month saved in project finance month-end reporting
- 70% reduction in first-week employee attrition (16.5% to 4.8%)
- $70,000 estimated savings by building internal solution vs. commercial legal AI software
Executive Summary
Integrated Global Services (IGS), a global, private equity-backed leader in industrial surface protection services, faced a mandate for aggressive EBITDA expansion. However, growth was constrained by time-intensive manual processes, critical “tribal knowledge” trapped in organizational silos, and a natural caution toward adopting new technologies. GSD at Work was engaged to bridge the gap between AI's potential and practical, value-driven implementation. By deploying a series of rapid, targeted “AI Action Workshops,” GSD coached IGS teams to solve specific departmental bottlenecks, creating internal AI champions and building viral adoption momentum from the ground up. The results were immediate and substantial, including quantifying $186,000 annual saving from reduced employee attrition, potential risk mitigation of $1-4 million in contract reviews, a 2-3 day per month reduction in the finance team's reporting workload, and an estimated $70,000 saved by building an internal solution instead of purchasing commercial legal AI software.
About Integrated Global Services (IGS)
Headquartered in Virginia, Integrated Global Services, Inc. (IGS) is an international provider of on-site surface protection solutions. With over 35 years of experience helping customers solve metal wastage, reliability, and energy efficiency problems in mission-critical equipment, IGS is an industry leader in the development and application of solutions in challenging operating environments. Learn more at integratedglobal.com.
Illustrative image of industrial surface protection work (AI-generated)
The Challenge: A Mandate for Growth Meets Operational Friction
As a portfolio company of American Securities, IGS operated under a clear directive: drive EBITDA expansion. While the company was a leader in its field, internal processes had not kept pace with its strategic ambitions.
A significant challenge was the “black art” problem. Decades of specialized, mission-critical knowledge resided in the heads of a few senior subject-matter experts. As CEO Rich Crawford noted, scaling this expertise was a cultural and operational hurdle. This knowledge bottleneck created dependencies that slowed down everything from technical report generation to sales enablement.
This friction was felt across the organization in the form of widespread “process drag”:
- Legal & Commercial: Chief Corporate Development Officer Hayden Hill and IGS's legal team were spending up to six hours on manual contract reviews. Internal counsel noted that drafting new agreements from scratch was a “very, very long time” consuming process, directly impacting their ability to meet tight deadlines.
- Finance & Accounting: The project finance team spent 2-3 days every month on manual job cost variance and accruals. Furthermore, integrating with their ERP system was described by IT as an “absolute nightmare,” making automated reporting a major challenge.
- Human Resources: Margie Cain's HR team faced a four-month manual data-combing exercise to analyze attrition trends. The leadership team also acknowledged experiencing “OKR fatigue” from the administrative overhead of their strategic execution framework.
Compounding these issues was a natural organizational inertia. While leaders like Rich Crawford had been briefed on AI by experts like Wharton's Ethan Mollick, there was caution around security—“putting our data out in the AI steer”—and the “whirlwind” of daily responsibilities left little room for learning new tools.
The Solution: Agile AI Adoption Through “Quick Win” Action Workshops
GSD at Work partnered with IGS not to execute a top-down digital transformation, but to prove the value of AI through rapid, high-impact engagements. The methodology, “AI Action Workshops,” focused on teaching IGS teams to “fish for themselves” by solving immediate, painful problems in collaborative, hands-on sessions. As Rich Crawford noted, this approach stood in stark contrast to typical consulting: “you're creating really nice value on calls... you're actually getting things done on calls which is really great.”
This “show, don't just tell” approach built confidence and delivered tangible results in hours, not months.
Automating High-Stakes Legal Review
In a two-hour workshop, GSD coached Hayden Hill's team to build a custom GPT, the “Contract Review Assistant.” Trained on IGS's 23-point scoring matrix, it automated the initial review of MSAs and POs. The tool saved an estimated $70,000 annually versus a commercial alternative and was projected to reduce the legal team's weekly review time by 80% (from 40 hours to under 10). Most critically, it reduced the risk of human error, with a potential impact of $1-4 million in mitigated risk.
Creating an HR “Oracle” for Attrition Analysis
Margie Cain's multi-month data challenge was solved in a single session. By feeding years of raw employee data into an AI model, the team instantly quantified the success of a new retention program. The analysis showed it had cut first-week attrition from 16.5% to just 4.8%, yielding $186,000 in annual savings. The AI also acted as a “skeptical board member,” proactively flagging a rise in involuntary terminations—a critical insight that highlighted a successful tightening of hiring standards.
Innovating Safety Reporting with Voice AI
In a groundbreaking project with IGS's safety director, GSD architected an AI-powered voice assistant using VAPI. Field technicians can now call a dedicated number to log safety observations in their natural voice, dramatically reducing friction and improving the quality and volume of critical safety data—a process now being moved into production.
The Results: Measurable Impact Across the Enterprise
The partnership delivered a powerful combination of hard savings, profound efficiency gains, and a palpable cultural shift towards innovation.
Hero Metrics
Operational Transformation
- Finance: The month-end variance analysis was transformed from a 3-day manual process into a sub-1-hour, AI-assisted workflow.
- Legal & Commercial: The “Contract Review Assistant” cut weekly review time by an estimated 80%, allowing senior leaders to focus on high-stakes negotiation.
- HR: Validated a critical retention program with hard data, providing the board with clear ROI and unlocking months of the HR team's time.
- Executive Leadership: CEO Rich Crawford reduced his weekly meeting prep time with his PE sponsor from over an hour to just 15 minutes.
Cultural Shift: From Skepticism to Excitement
The most significant outcome was the change in mindset. The “quick win” approach demonstrated that AI was not an abstract concept but a practical tool for solving today's problems, creating energy and momentum throughout the organization.
Direct Quotes
“Five for sure. I'd even rate it a 10... How quickly Hayden got through his... how quickly Joel jumped on board... the speed is key here.”
“A six [out of five]. I would have figured this out eventually, but it would have taken me a million hours... this was just exactly what I need.”
Conclusion: The Foundation for an AI-Native Future
By focusing on tangible outcomes and empowering internal champions, GSD at Work helped Integrated Global Services move from cautious curiosity to active, value-driven AI implementation. IGS now possesses a suite of powerful AI-driven workflows and a repeatable framework for identifying and executing on new opportunities. This has laid a robust foundation for continued innovation and accelerated EBITDA expansion, proving that a pragmatic, action-oriented approach is the key to unlocking AI's true business potential.
“Most AI discussions feel like brainstorming with no finish line. This has been the opposite — every session turns ideas into action. The focus on outcomes, not just options, has made it easy for our leadership team to embrace AI with confidence and purpose.”