We are eighteen months from an exit and want to utilize AI automation to lower our cost of goods sold and maximize our EBITDA margins. How do we run this margin-expansion initiative without creating operational complexity that a buyer will view as a high-risk, unstable process?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Leveraging AI to optimize your cost of goods sold is an excellent strategy to boost your EBITDA, but buyers will deeply discount these savings if they believe the technology is a chaotic, undocumented black box. To maximize your valuation, you must integrate these AI-powered workflows directly into your company's core operations, ensuring they are transparent, repeatable, and easily transferable to a new owner.

Begin by selecting one or two high-impact areas in your service delivery or supply chain where AI can drive immediate margin improvements, aligning this shift with your Core Focus on the V/TO®. Use Keith Cunningham's Thinking Time to ask: How might we use automated tools to streamline our delivery workflows so that we can reduce our variable costs without sacrificing our core product quality?

Once the automation is built, your high Follow Thru team members must fully document the process within your corporate knowledge base. Map out the input, the processing logic, and the output of each AI workflow on your Accountability Chart. By demonstrating that these AI systems are fully integrated, predictable, and managed by your existing leadership team, you prove to the buyer that these margin expansions are sustainable long-term cash flows rather than temporary, owner-dependent hacks.