Light manufacturing and fabrication
The fabricator whose small jobs paid for nothing
Revenue up two years running, the owner working six days, and the bank balance flat.
An illustrative composite, not one business
Four pieces of work
Worked examples
Each of these is a composite assembled from several businesses, and each says so on its own page. There is no client name, no logo and no testimonial anywhere on this website.
Why these are composites, at some length
The normal shape of a consulting case study is a named client, a percentage and a quotation from a managing director. Every one of those three is a problem.
The name is somebody else's confidentiality spent on our credibility, and they usually agreed to it during the warm week after the work finished. The percentage is almost always reconstructed: a business is not a laboratory, there is no version of the client's year without us in it, and a number attributing a revenue change to an engagement is an estimate wearing the clothes of a measurement. And the quotation is the part that gets written by the consultancy and approved by the client, which is not the same thing as being said.
So what is below instead is: the situation, what was actually done, and what is now different that a person inside the business could point at. The businesses are assembled from several each, which is why none of them is recognisable and why none of them is exactly true of anybody. That is a real cost — a composite is less persuasive than a name — and it is the right one to pay.
Every case study on this site is a composite. Every case study on this site is an illustrative composite assembled from several businesses. No client is named, no logo appears, and there is not a single testimonial on this website attributed to a person — a fabricated one would be the one genuinely dishonest thing a consulting site can do.
Home care services
The care agency losing a week to the roster
Two coordinators were spending most of every week rebuilding a roster by telephone, and turnover among carers was highest in the branch with the most last-minute changes..
An illustrative composite, not one business
Specialty food wholesale
The importer with one customer and no sleep
Forty-three per cent of revenue came from one supermarket group on ninety-day terms, and the owner had been meaning to do something about it for three years..
An illustrative composite, not one business
Mechanical contracting
The contractor who wanted four years and needed six
The owner wanted to be out in four years.
An illustrative composite, not one business
$2,200 a partner day · ninety minutes free · about one in four we talk out of it
Start with the assessment, or just telephone
The assessment takes about four minutes and gives you a written summary of what your answers suggest and which engagement addresses each thing. It is indicative and not professional advice, and it is a better opening than a blank contact form. If you would rather skip it, the telephone works and the first meeting is ninety minutes and free.