Shikha Khare · Strategy & Business Transformation
The starting point is always the workflow, not the technology. By identifying the structural constraint before recommending process redesign, automation, or AI, I help finance, operations, and technology leaders build workflows that improve decision quality, accountability, and execution.
I don't start by asking where AI can be applied. I diagnose the workflow first, determine the intervention it actually needs, and design the human, automated, and AI components around that constraint.
Featured Work
Case studies are anonymised to protect organisational confidentiality. Evidence status is identified separately for each.
The constraint was not the data — it was how commentary was collected and validated downstream. The proposed future state redesigns the intake, automates rules-based checks, and introduces AI only once structured inputs exist.
Proposed future state — AI components not yet implemented.
A high-volume hiring function with no shared system of record. The operating model was redesigned before any system was built — formalising approvals, enforcing one active candidate mapping per requisition, establishing finance as a governance gate. Manual reconciliation effort fell by 40%.
Implemented transformation — outcomes reflect post-implementation results.
Where transformation breaks down
Too many steps, unclear ownership, manual workarounds accumulating where redesign never happened.
Leadership time goes to explaining historical performance rather than evaluating risk and acting on it.
Automation and AI amplify structural problems. The sequence — redesign first, then automate, then AI — is not optional.
Governance and ownership built after the fact rather than in from the start. The design reverts when the practitioner leaves.
Method
Find the structural constraint — not the presenting symptom.
Redesign the workflow and decision model before selecting any technology.
Apply the right intervention: redesign, standardisation, automation, or AI — in that order.
Establish ownership, measures, and controls that sustain the design after handover.
Full methodology: Framework overview ↓ · Read the article →
About
Ten years across finance, infrastructure, and operations — including roles at Amazon and Godrej Properties — taught me one thing clearly: the tool is rarely the problem, and rarely the solution either. What determines whether a transformation works is whether someone diagnosed the real constraint before anyone started building.
That question is where I start.
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Every engagement begins with understanding whether the constraint is process, ownership, governance, data, or technology. If you are unsure where the constraint sits, that conversation is the right place to start.
For hiring managers and recruiters
Open to strategy, business transformation, operating-model design, and technology consulting opportunities across the UK, EU, US, and India markets. Background spans finance transformation, infrastructure governance, workforce planning, and AI-enabled workflow redesign.