Revolutionize your IT services Reinventing Business Model - Offering “Prompt engineering as a service”.

Traditionally IT services companies have been undertaking projects to develop applications or products for companies.

With AI, low-code & no-code offerings, in future this opportunity will continue to shrink.

While large IT services companies will have resources to invest in developing AI first products, smaller or even mid-size companies will have to think about a trade-off.

In the longer run should they continue in the development space with ever increasing competition & pressure of adopting new technologies or would they like to pivot to different business models.

Based on their current revenue pipeline & financial strength few companies may continue evolving AI capabilities for,

1.????? Using AI for coding to reduce time & cost and become competitive in the market.

2.????? Execute GenAI integration or LLM / SLM projects for clients.

However, there’s another big opportunity with relatively less critical skills and that’s offering “Prompt engineering as a service” provides an opportunity.

Entering this service space today has certain advantages like early mover advantage, even a premium offering with less service providers into this growing business, secondly you will have easier chance of recruiting & skilling employees, later you will have to pay more money or do something else to attract the talent.

It will also be a trade off between getting lower price & returns in the short term with idea of getting higher returns & competitive advantage in the longer run.

Irrespective of which option you choose, from a long-term perspective, you anyway will have to reimagine their business model to leverage opportunities created by Gen AI & AI first offerings.

Here I am going to focus on prompt engineering as a service option.

Many organizations are now using different Gen-AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini or Co-pilot and others and many more domain specific LLMs or SLMs are emerging.

To converse with these models, there is a growing need of prompt engineers and hence an opportunity today, till a few years by the time prompt engineering will become a commodity or citizen skill.

So, let’s talk more about how to create “Prompt Engineering as a Service” as a new service offering.

This service will focus on creating, optimizing, and integrating AI-generated prompts tailored to meet specific business needs.

And based on business priorities different companies may want to use it for enabling companies to improve efficiency, enhance customer experiences, or to create different types of contents to be consumed internally or publish externally.

Offering Prompt Engineering as a service involves several key aspects to ensure the delivery of high-quality and effective solutions.

Service Model:

The service could cover every aspect of prompt engineering, from initial consultation and needs assessment to custom prompt creation, implementation, and ongoing support.

They can as well offer a BOT model where they provide comprehensive training to internal team to effectively use and manage these prompts, define the systems, processes and continuous performance monitoring and optimization.

Use Cases:

Content creation itself could be a starting point to offer before evolving into different types of projects, and here’s potential use cases across industries like,

1.????? Corporate Training: Develop interactive training programs for employee onboarding and continuous learning or content for internal newsletters, announcements, and employee handbooks.

2.????? Education: Create personalized tutoring systems that adapt to individual student needs, providing explanations and practice problems.

3.????? Healthcare: Generate step-by-step guides and instructional materials for medical procedures and patient care.

4.????? Manufacturing: Produce detailed manuals and troubleshooting guides for machinery and equipment, including user manuals and feature descriptions.

5.????? Pharmaceuticals: Assist researchers by generating summaries of recent scientific papers, extracting key insights, and drafting research reports.

6.????? Technology: Research summaries like details of different technologies, models or product evolution and latest news and happenings in the technology space.

7.????? Healthcare: Develop policy documents for hospital protocols and patient care standards. Or generation of patient history reports, visit summaries, discharge notes, treatment plans and follow-up care instructions.

8.????? Legal: Automate the drafting of legal documents such as contracts, wills, and legal briefs.

9.????? Medical Research: Generate summaries of clinical trial results, research findings, and scientific publications or drug research reports and regulatory submission documents.

10.? Media: Feature articles, interviews, editorial content or event reports in sports, finances or wealth management.

Upskilling

The starting point would be asking how you turn the digital skills in AI skills, upskill people for prompt engineering, using, conversing and creating required output as per the given requirement.

Two approaches will help, either upskills & use engineering freshers or alternatively hire experienced individuals from different domains with B. Com, BBA or similar graduation degrees.? They will have to be trained to create, manage, and utilize prompts effectively based on a given requirement.

The upskilling will involve technical training likes understanding different AI models and learning how to design, refine, and optimize prompts for various use cases. They would also need basic domain / industry specific knowledge to create effective prompts.

Additionally, problem solving skills to address issues that arise during prompt implementation and optimization as well as effective communication skills to interact with clients and understand their needs and expectations.

Pricing Models:

Pricing Prompt Engineering as a Service, companies will have to evolve it based on client needs as the pricing should covers costs, reflect the value provided and remains competitive in the market. Here’s what companies can think of to price this service:

1.????? Assessment and Consultation Fees: Offering a free or low-cost initial consultation can attract clients and provide an opportunity to assess their needs. For a comprehensive needs assessment, a one-time fee can be charged, which varies based on the complexity and size of the client's organization.

2.????? Project-Based Pricing: For straightforward use cases, charge a flat fee.

3.????? Subscription based pricing: Offer monthly subscription packages for continuous support, optimization, and updates. And this can be a basic, standard or premium plan based on number of iterations, major or minor updates and ongoing query resolution support.

4.????? Usage based or value-based pricing: Will have to be evolved as the client engagement stabilizes and moves into a long-term relationship.

5.????? Training and Support Fees: Charge for training sessions conducted, either on-site or virtually or offer packages that include multiple sessions at a discounted rate.

The pricing may vary depend on size to accommodate large local businesses & global corporates and industry. By considering these different permutations and combinations you can create a flexible and attractive pricing strategy for Prompt Engineering as a Service.

Finally, creating such a service will have to involve strategic thinking & planning as the business will be creating a new business model, so the aspects like creating the services, establishing capabilities, acquiring customers with marketing & sales and servicing effectively must be analysed and planned in financial context of your business.

As many organizations across industries are in the process of adopting GenAI into their businesses and finding the real use cases; IT services companies will have time to build this service.

But speed and agility will be crucial as many non-IT companies will be thinking on these opportunities and soon will be in the game with different level of maturity & readiness to offer it as a service.

Ready to explore this or other business model reinvention for your company? Let’s talk.