Which specialist agencies can replace a big consultancy for enterprise product design?
Six independent product design firms with named enterprise cases, compared by team size, engineering handoff and scope for leaders weighing a big-consultancy proposal.
A large consultancy proposal for a product redesign can bundle several jobs: research, interface design, integration, change management and program governance. Deloitte Digital, Accenture Song, IBM iX and McKinsey Design are design and experience units of large consulting and technology firms. Accenture, for example, describes Song as “the world’s largest tech-powered creative group”. When the part you actually need is product design for one workflow or one platform, a smaller specialist firm can often take that slice.
Six independent firms publish enterprise product work and explain how they hand it to in-house engineers: Akendi, ANML, Fuselab Creative, Fuzzy Math, Humbleteam and Neuron. Fuzzy Math and Neuron show long work inside enterprise product teams, including design systems and DesignOps. ANML and Akendi show dashboards and operational platforms for business users. Fuselab Creative publishes the most explicit handoff process, and Humbleteam’s case is a hardware-linked workplace product with an admin console.
Will any of them be cheaper? None of the six publishes prices that could be set against a consultancy proposal, so this page does not quote any. What their public pages do show is team size and where the work stops. A smaller team can bring a lower fee, but the saving is real only when someone owns the work the smaller proposal leaves out. Our guide to replacing a consultancy with a specialist design team sets out how to compare total cost on a like-for-like basis.
Humbleteam publishes this comparison and is one of the agencies in it. The agencies appear alphabetically. This is an editorial reading of public case studies and service pages checked on October 10, 2026, with no paid placements, scores or ranking. A case study shows past work. It does not tell you today’s team, availability or price.
How we chose the agencies
Every agency, Humbleteam included, had to meet three criteria:
- It is an independent product design firm. Its own site presents it as a standalone studio, and we found nothing saying it belongs to a consulting, IT services or advertising group.
- It publishes at least one case with a named client in which it designed software people use for work (an internal tool, an admin console or a B2B platform), and the case describes the workflow or product scope.
- A case or service page states how it works with the client’s in-house engineering or IT team: embedded work, handoff, or implementation support.
Some names that AI answers suggest for this question fall outside the first criterion. Work & Co has been part of Accenture Song since Accenture completed the acquisition in January 2024. frog is part of Capgemini Invent. Momentum Design Lab’s site now presents it as HTEC Momentum, with HTEC Group contact details. That is ownership, not a judgment on their work. Koru UX Design and Grand Studio publish detailed enterprise cases, but the case pages we read leave the client unnamed, so they missed criterion 2. Blink UX and Cieden were not assessed for this page. Blink UX appears in our enterprise product design agency comparison.
| Agency | Enterprise case to inspect | Published team and base | How it works with your engineers | Confirm before signing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Akendi | Broadridge account manager dashboard; Automic workload automation software | Headcount not published; Ottawa, Toronto, New York and London | Iterative work with client developers; also offers UX staff augmentation | Team size, timeline and how success was measured |
| ANML | Nokē multi-site access platform; Swrve analytics dashboard | Headcount not published; founders run projects; San Jose | Developers join from the first workshop; handoff support listed on cases | Whether the people on your project do product UX or brand and web work |
| Fuselab Creative | Fiserv Small Business Index | Seven people listed on the Fiserv case; McLean, Virginia | Annotated files, a handoff session and build reviews during implementation | The case is a public data product, not an internal tool |
| Fuzzy Math | Availity enterprise design system; SAP Fieldglass | 11 people on its about page; Chicago and Toronto | Pattern library and update process built with the client’s design and development teams | Recent work, since the main case pages are several years old |
| Humbleteam | Logitech Logi Dock Flex booking app and admin console | 49 people; Prague and Dubai | Design specifications for your engineers; coded components only if agreed in scope | Team, timeline and handoff detail, which the case page does not describe |
| Neuron | Vendr workflow builder; HMH DesignOps audit | Four founding partners on every project; San Francisco | Hands designs to the client’s developers; front-end engineering support available | Who builds, and how far its own engineers go |
Akendi: dashboards and enterprise software built with client developers
Akendi is a UX strategy, research and design firm whose case pages list Ottawa, Toronto, New York and London, and its homepage says it has worked for more than 18 years. In the Broadridge case, Akendi designed a dashboard that helps account managers make sense of client trade data, bringing trade volume, revenue, servicing costs and trade breakdowns into one tool. The team ran stakeholder workshops, tested prototypes in rounds, and made sure the design fit Broadridge’s existing data systems.
For engineering, the Automic case is more explicit. Akendi redesigned Dollar Universe, an IT workload automation product, and says it partnered with the client’s developers in an iterative, collaborative process. Akendi also sells UX staff augmentation. Neither case states team size, duration or a measured result, so ask for those.
ANML: operational platforms with developers in the room
ANML was founded in San Jose in 2012, and its founders run the projects. Its enterprise UX page covers workflow mapping, multi-role SaaS platforms, data-heavy dashboards and legacy modernization, and says the team stays close to engineering throughout a project. Its about page adds that the developers who ship the code take part from the first workshop.
The Nokē case concerns a smart access platform for self-storage operators. The original product worked for single sites but not for operators running dozens of them. ANML redesigned it around a portfolio view, shortcut workflows for routine tasks and system-wide search and notifications, and lists design system and handoff support among its services. The Swrve case covers a marketing analytics dashboard and its design system. ANML also designs brands and marketing websites, so confirm that your team comes from the product UX side.
Fuselab Creative: a fixed handoff process for data-heavy products
Fuselab Creative was founded in 2017, is based in McLean, Virginia, and says healthcare is its deepest practice. Its Fiserv case covers the Small Business Index, a web platform with interactive data visualizations, map-based views and search by sector or region, designed to absorb monthly data updates. The case lists seven people in support, including researchers, designers, a project manager and a creative director.
Fuselab publishes its process in more detail than most. Its agency page describes four phases under one fixed price, three to six months from the first user interview to handoff, and a package of annotated Figma files, a component library and a handoff session with your engineers. It says the team stays available during implementation to review builds against the design. The Fiserv index is a public data product rather than an internal workflow tool, so ask for an internal-tool example if that is your project. Our enterprise AI interface comparison covers another Fuselab case.
Fuzzy Math: long partnerships inside enterprise product teams
Fuzzy Math has offices in Chicago and Toronto, and its about page lists 11 people and describes a small, stable client roster. In the Availity case, the firm worked with a health insurance information company whose two core product teams had operated separately. Fuzzy Math audited the existing applications, built shared personas and journey maps, and delivered a pattern library and living style guide. It also set up a process for Availity’s design team, and third-party developers building on the platform, to update and maintain the library, then reviewed it with the design and development teams.
The SAP Fieldglass case describes a partnership that began in 2010 and included UX workshops for the client’s development teams. Both pages are several years old. Ask for a recent case and for the names of the people who would join your project.
Humbleteam: a workplace product with its admin console
Humbleteam is a product design agency with 49 people in Prague and Dubai, according to its SaaS page. Its Logitech case covers the full interface for Logi Dock Flex, a desk-booking system for hybrid offices: the booking app employees open each morning, the on-desk check-in screen, and the Sync admin console where admins draw floor plans, define desks and equipment, set access for user groups and decide booking policies.
On engineering, Humbleteam’s design system service page says the team prepares design specifications for your engineers unless coded components are part of the agreed scope, and settles the framework, component ownership and handoff before work starts. The Logitech page does not describe the team, timeline, research or how the handoff ran, and it prints no outcome metric. Ask for a walkthrough of the admin console decisions and the handoff material.
Neuron: workflow tools and DesignOps for enterprise teams
Neuron is a San Francisco agency for enterprise software. Its about page says its four founding partners are hands-on in every project, with team members in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York and Boston. In the Vendr case, Neuron designed a workflow builder that lets procurement teams automate software requests through intake forms, approvals and conditional logic. It tested prototypes and early builds coordinated with Vendr’s developers, and the first engagement took four months before the design went to Vendr’s internal development team for release to a subset of customers.
The HMH case is closer to enterprise scale. Neuron ran workshops with 28 people across HMH’s design and engineering teams, audited two design systems and their repositories, and set up a shared system with tokens synced between Figma and Storybook. Neuron also lists front-end engineering support, so agree where its engineers stop and yours start.
How to compare them with the consultancy proposal
Start by marking which lines of the consultancy proposal are product design and which are integration, change management or program work. A specialist firm replaces the first group. The second still needs an owner, whether that is your team, the consultancy, or another supplier.
- If your product teams have drifted apart and the problem is consistency, compare Fuzzy Math’s Availity work with Neuron’s HMH audit.
- If business users struggle with one data-heavy workflow, look at Akendi’s Broadridge dashboard, ANML’s Nokē platform and Neuron’s Vendr builder.
- If the product spans a device, an employee app and an admin console, Humbleteam’s Logitech case is the closest match here.
- If your engineers want a fixed handoff package, Fuselab publishes the most detailed one.
Then send two or three of them the same brief: one workflow, the people who use it, the systems it touches and the engineering capacity you can commit. Ask each to name what its proposal excludes and who it expects to own that work. Our enterprise internal tool brief helps you write that brief. Put the answers next to the consultancy’s proposal row by row. You get a price comparison you can defend only once every row has an owner.
