Making technology work for the business since 2002.
Margin leaking somewhere you cannot quite pin down. Reporting you do not fully trust. Quotes that do not turn into orders, or orders nobody follows up. A supplier or a system that let you down last month. Cash tied up where it should not be, or the whole thing depending on what is in one person’s head.
These are business problems that happen to run on technology, and they cost real money every month they are left. I find the one costing you most, prove it from your own numbers, and fix it at the smallest sensible scale — defined scope, defined outcome, agreed price before anything starts.
How I work
Find the one thing costing you most. Prove it. Fix it small.
You do not need a transformation programme, and you do not need a strategy deck. You need the single failure quietly costing you margin, cash or control isolated and dealt with — and then, if it is worth it, the next one.
1 · Find it
A short, focused look at where the money, the time or the control is actually leaking. It is rarely where people assume, which is exactly why it has survived this long.
2 · Prove it
Quantified from your own numbers, not a benchmark borrowed from someone else’s business. If I cannot show you what it is costing, it does not make the list.
3 · Fix it, small
The smallest change that actually solves it, not the largest one I could sell. A result you can see in the P&L or in the week — not a two-year roadmap.
AI is a large part of how I can now do this quickly and affordably — work that was six figures three years ago is often days now. But it is the engine, not the headline. The point is the money back in your business.
Or come in through a specific problem
Something has broken or stalled.
A system down, a supplier who let you down, an incident you have not recovered from, a decision that has stuck. Costs you cannot explain. Bounded work with a date on it.
Turnaround and recoveryIt works, but it is slow, manual or leaking margin.
The orders get out, but it takes four people, a spreadsheet and too many hours. Quotes that do not convert, follow-ups that never happen, the same data keyed in three times. Systems and AI that take the work off your people.
Systems and AIA change or decision you cannot call alone.
A new office or market, a big spend, an acquisition, a board question you cannot yet answer. Someone senior and independent to think it through with, before you commit the money.
Where to startPrefer to see the kinds of work, with real examples of each →
- Since 2002Innov8, in Hong Kong and across Asia
- 50+businesses across 12 sectors
- 20 yearsas one client's senior technology head
- 28startups advised on AI and tech strategy
Proof
Twenty years with one client. Fifty-odd others alongside it.
Yearfull Group, a Hong Kong contracting group, have kept me on for two decades. Not as their IT support — they have people for that. I am the one they call for the decisions that carry risk, the upgrades that cannot go wrong, and the systems that did not exist until we built them.
What I built for them
- A secure subcontractor payment control system, developed from scratch
- A cloud file platform linking Hong Kong, Singapore and major project sites, so drawings and approvals moved between offices, clients and consultants without anybody emailing a file
- An AI tender-checking system that reads a bid pack the way an experienced estimator would
- Their website
What I steered
- IT strategy, planning and annual cost control at board level
- Server, network, Wi-Fi and firewall upgrades — specified, scheduled and run out of hours
- Vendor selection and management, and licensing kept under control
- Training and mentoring for their own IT people, so capability stayed in the business
- 40%
IT running costs taken out, without the business losing a working hour.
- Zero
Downtime across server, network and firewall upgrades, delivered around live projects.
- HK$1.5m
Potential costs identified for avoidance on a single tender by the AI checking system.
- Same day
Emergency recovery when a failure did happen, with all systems fully restored inside seven days.
Those four numbers are one client over twenty years, not four different ones. That is the honest version, and it is also the more useful one — anybody can look good on a three-month project.
It is the flagship, not the whole fleet
Roughly sixty businesses have been through Innov8 since 2002. A representative few:
- Terramillem Capital — a secure data room and members area for capital and advisory work: controlled external access, expiring links, and a record of who opened what
- Thrift Logistics — interim management and a warehouse management system built from the ground up; picking errors down 99%
- The Venetian Macao — stalled document and compliance systems rescued on the resort development, through Hsin Chong Engineering (Macau), and delivered in three months
- An international accountancy firm and a global brand valuation firm — websites built to exacting corporate brand guidelines
- A planning and urban design consultancy — a business-critical database application redeveloped
- A compliance firm — an interactive risk management application
- 28 startups — mentoring, AI and technology strategy, and research, from 3D visualisation to energy optimisation
Breadth
Sixteen sectors, and what each one actually needed.
Sector lists are cheap. Here is the useful version — the industries I have worked in, and the kind of problem each one turned out to have.
- Construction, engineering and fit-out — information flow between site, office and consultants; document control that survives a claim
- Property and real estate — marketing systems and getting old platforms to do something useful
- Logistics and supply chain — warehouse management, interim leadership, error rates
- Finance, capital and investment — secure data rooms for raises, sales and diligence
- Accountancy and professional services — brand-exact digital presence, and IT that a partner can trust
- Legal, risk and compliance — risk management applications and controlled records
- Healthcare, wellness and fitness — getting small practices online and booked
- Education and training — eLearning platforms and course delivery
- Hospitality, food and beverage — digital signage, multi-screen broadcast, loyalty and content
- Gaming and integrated resorts — compliance documentation on a Macau development
- Retail and consumer brands — storefronts, content and campaign systems
- eCommerce — strategy, storefront build and progressive web apps
- Manufacturing and materials — interactive product catalogues for a technical sales force
- Media, creative and marketing — production systems and 3D visualisation
- Technology and software — strategy, and startup mentoring through to launch
- Energy and cleantech — AI-driven optimisation and go-to-market advice
Four technology eras sit behind that — PC and client-server, then the web, then cloud, now AI. Every one of those transitions left businesses stranded halfway, which is usually where I come in.
The practical value to you: I have almost certainly seen your problem in another industry, usually more than once. And I know when a problem is genuinely unusual — in which case I will say so, rather than reach for the answer that worked somewhere else.
Legacy systems
The old system nobody wants to touch.
Most digital consultants will tell you to replace it. Sometimes that is right. More often you cannot afford the disruption, and the real job is to make the old thing safe, supportable, and able to talk to the new thing.
Line-of-business applications nobody has the source code for. Databases written by somebody who left in 2009. On-premise servers holding a business together. FileMaker, Lotus Notes, Access, bespoke tools built by a clever person who has long gone.
I have been working with these since before they were legacy. I can usually tell you inside a week whether it should be repaired, wrapped, migrated or replaced — and what each of those actually costs you.
What I do
Nine ways in. One person accountable for all of them.
Most firms come through one of these doors and end up needing two. That is fine — it is the same head on all of it, so nothing gets lost in a handover.
Turnaround and recovery
When something has failed, stalled or drifted — systems, processes or the way work moves between teams.
What the first week looks likeAI that gets used
Built to be used, not demonstrated. Document and tender intelligence, assistants your people open every day, adoption that sticks.
What I buildWebsites and app development
The internal tool, client portal or calculator you shelved because it looked like a six-figure job. It usually is not, any more.
What that costs nowPlanning and cost optimisation
What you run, what it costs, what to cancel, and what to do next year. The 40% came from exactly this.
How a review worksWhere to start
Independent advice before you commit money. No vendor allegiance, no reseller margin dressed up as a recommendation.
How advisory worksDocument management & data rooms
AI-powered document management on Egnyte, and secure data rooms for capital raises, diligence and board material.
What gets builtEgnyte® for AEC
Architecture, engineering, construction, owners and property. Large models, external teams, and a record that has to survive a dispute.
The AEC buildFractional CDO / Interim CIO
A senior technology head without the full-time hire. Typically two days a month, or interim cover with an end date.
How it runsSmart Packages
Fixed-scope, fixed-price pieces of work for smaller problems — clarity, sales, productivity, delivery and more.
See the packagesWorth knowing
The tool you keep meaning to build.
Almost every business has one. A spreadsheet everybody emails around. A process that only works because one person remembers the order. Something you would like to put in front of clients but priced up two years ago and quietly shelved.
Revisit it. AI-assisted development has changed what a small custom tool costs, and changed it by enough that the answer you got in 2024 is no longer the answer.
The sort of thing I mean
- A client portal that makes a six-person firm look like a sixty-person one
- A quote or cost calculator your people use in front of the customer, not back at the office
- An internal tracker that finally replaces the spreadsheet everyone has their own copy of
- An approval or sign-off flow that stops living in somebody's inbox
- A private assistant that answers questions from your own documents
Why it is different now
Days rather than months, and a fraction of what the same thing cost to build even two years ago. Yours to keep, running on your own data.
The catch is that fast tools are easy to build badly. I have been writing and buying software since long before any of this was easy, which mostly means I know which corners not to cut — and I will tell you when an off-the-shelf product would serve you better than anything custom.
Egnyte® Value-Added Reseller
Your files, under control — and finally useful.
If your business runs on documents, this is the single change that pays back fastest. Egnyte is where I put a company's files so that people can find them, share them safely, and now ask questions of them.
What it actually does for you
- Big files stop being a problem. Drawings, models, video and photo libraries open like a normal drive on your desktop, without filling your laptop up
- It works in the mainland. Teams in China get the same files at usable speed — the reason a lot of firms move in the first place
- You keep control. Who can see what, who opened it, who sent it out, and links that expire when you want them to
- It plugs into what you already use. Microsoft 365, Google, Outlook, AutoCAD, Bluebeam and the rest — nobody has to change how they work
- You can ask it questions. AI over your own files, so "what did we agree on the lighting spec" gets an answer with the document attached
- It becomes your private knowledge base. Twenty years of accumulated know-how, searchable, instead of sitting in folders nobody opens
Why size does not matter here
It is used by very large organisations, which is where the sales material tends to point. That is not the interesting part.
The interesting part is that a ten-person firm can have the same control over its information as a thousand-person one, for a sensible monthly cost, and can be running properly inside a fortnight.
I am a Value-Added Reseller in the Egnyte Partner Program, so licensing, migration, configuration, training and support all come from one place — and the person setting it up is the person who understood your problem.
One honest note. Most firms already holding a licence are using perhaps a third of it. A good part of my job is switching on what you already pay for before selling you anything new.
Who does the work
One senior head, and a network of specialists behind him.
One senior point of contact, from first call to handover. The person who scopes the work is the person who does it and the person you ring afterwards.
When a job needs a specialist, I bring one in from an associate network built over two decades: security and firewalls, networks and infrastructure, software development, document control, finance and payments systems, and construction-specific expertise.
They are people I have worked with repeatedly and would use on my own business. I stay accountable for the outcome either way — you are not handed off to a stranger and left to manage them.
Hong Kong on the ground · the region, remotely
Based in Hong Kong. Delivered wherever you run.
Hong Kong is home, and where I work in person. For businesses in Singapore, Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City, Manila, Sydney or Auckland, the engagement is remote and fractional by design — and for this kind of work that is an advantage, not a compromise.
Why remote suits this work
Finding a costly failure, proving it from your numbers and fixing it small is analysis, judgement and building. None of it needs me in your corridor. It is scoped in writing, delivered to a defined outcome, and reported so an owner or a board can act on it — you get a senior operator a few days a month, not a full-time hire or a flight budget.
And when the costly problems live in the joins between offices, systems or markets — where the money usually does hide — someone who works across all of them at once is worth more than a local supplier who sees only their corner. Where being physically on the ground genuinely matters, I say so, and we plan for it.
Where I work
- Hong Kong — in person and on the ground
- Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines — remote and fractional
- Australia and New Zealand — remote, with enough working-hours overlap to stay responsive
- Mainland China and Macau — remote, with the cross-border quirks handled
How the money works
Every engagement is scoped, priced and agreed in writing before any work starts.
Fixed fee against a defined outcome. No hourly billing and no open-ended retainer.
If the work turns out to be different from what we scoped, we stop and re-scope it rather than run up a bill and hand it to you at the end.
Featured product
DealMind
An AI negotiation coach — preparation before the room, and support during it. Built by Innov8, in use now.
Most negotiation training is a two-day course you have forgotten by the following month. DealMind works the other way round. It prepares you for the specific deal in front of you, maps what each side actually wants, and tells you where your position is weaker than you think.
In their words
What clients say
A breath of fresh air.
Professional results without needing a large team or a large budget.
Knowledgeable, quality-focused and value for money.
Who you get
Adam Bell
Innov8 has been in Hong Kong since 2002, built on a career that runs right across business, marketing and technology. That combination is the point: I read a technology decision as a commercial one, because I have had to live with both.
Roughly sixty businesses across sixteen sectors. Interim management for a contracting group, document and compliance systems on a Macau resort development, a warehouse management system, a subcontractor payment platform, an AI tender checker, and a great many systems that were older than the people running them.
A single senior point of contact is the whole proposition. You are dealing with the person who makes the decisions, and when a job needs specialist hands I bring in the right people and remain accountable for the result.
For advisers and operating partners
The technology person you can put in front of a client.
If you work close to owner-run businesses — private-equity value creation, a fractional CFO or CIO seat, an accountancy or advisory practice, an ERP or systems implementer, a trade-finance or freight adviser — you see the operating problems early. Some of them are not yours to fix.
I am the person you bring in for the technology, information or AI problem you have spotted but do not want to own. A bounded, senior pair of hands who will diagnose it, quantify it from the numbers and fix it at the smallest sensible scale — make you look good for the introduction, and hand the relationship back. No land-and-expand, no quiet competing for your seat.
Broken, underperforming, or brand new?
Tell me what is happening. If it is not something I should be doing, I will say so and point you somewhere better.