November 2, 2026
When AI Cuts Delivery Effort, Who Gets the Savings?
AI can increase margins and reduce delivery costs. But the real test lies in turning excess capacity into revenue.
By Soumya Ranjan Dash
6 min read
Imagine that a delivery leader walks into an account review and says:
"By using AI, we can reduce the effort to deliver this scope by 30%."
The client partner sees a chance to reduce the price. The delivery leader sees an opportunity to improve margins, but the finance leader asks:
"What does this do to our contribution?"
As someone who has delivered strategy consulting, technology implementation, and global operations, I find systems thinking useful to examine this. So, I would ask the following questions:
- Can we trace the benefit to the factors supporting it and opposing it?
- What has changed for the client?
- What has changed for us in delivery?
- What has changed from an economic viewpoint?
While leading insurance digital operations and platforms at Wipro, I encountered this question many times. One instance was when pricing a large deal for a UK-based pension provider. While my team was projecting huge labor savings in future years, the question was how much of those savings could be front-loaded and passed on to the client. We decided to pass on some of those projected savings upfront, taking some calculated risk. The agreed-fee structure allowed us to do this. Depending on how an…