Advisory & Strategy

Supply chain and operations problems, measured in cash and margin.

Every problem on this page is an operating problem with a financial consequence, and the consequence is usually larger and later than it looks. We assess it, size it, and recommend what to do about it. We build the case, the budget, and the roadmap. Where you want it, we design and implement the fix and stay to keep it in place. The phases below describe how the work is scoped and priced, not a queue: within one engagement they routinely run in tandem.

  • Phase One

    Assessment and solution definition

    Most problems arrive stated as a symptom.

    • Size the problem in the numbers it actually moves: cash, margin, working capital, service level
    • Trace it to drivers rather than to the function it surfaced in, and separate the presenting complaint from the constraint underneath it
    • Define what is being solved, and what is explicitly out of scope
    • Identify the options, including doing nothing, priced, so the comparison is real
    • Recommend the best fit, with what it rules out and what it commits you to stated plainly

  • Phase Two

    Business case, budget, and roadmap

    Built to be interrogated, not admired.

    • Expected return on the recommended solution, with the assumptions exposed
    • The cash, margin, or working capital at stake, and the investment required in money and in your team’s time
    • Budget shaped against your actual capacity and the priorities already competing for it
    • A roadmap with sequencing and dependencies: what has to be true before the next step is worth taking
    • How it will be measured once it is underway, agreed before it starts

  • Phase Three

    Design and implementation

    Built and stood up, not specified and handed over.

    • Process design, roles, and decision rights
    • System configuration and the data underneath it
    • Contracts, terms, and supplier transitions where the solution needs them
    • Planning parameters, thresholds, and the reporting that makes them visible

  • Phase Four

    Sustainment and oversight

    Optional, and only where it earns its place.

    • Operating cadence and the meetings where decisions actually get made
    • Scorecards measuring what was agreed, internally and with suppliers
    • Named ownership on your side, with the handover done deliberately
    • Periodic oversight where you want a check rather than a presence

  • Scope

    Entering at any phase

    You do not have to buy the whole arc, or run it in order.

    • Some engagements are an assessment and a business case, and stop there
    • Some arrive with the case already made and need only the design and the build
    • Phases overlap in practice: design often starts while the case is still being sharpened
    • Each phase is scoped and priced on its own, with the next one optional
    • Nothing rolls into an open-ended retainer by default

Where We Apply It

Eight problems, and the route each one takes to your financials.

These are the engagements we are asked for most. Each is a supply chain or operations problem that reaches the financial statements by a path most operators can describe but few companies have measured.

  • Working Capital

    Inventory that stopped moving

    Cash on a rack instead of in the business.

    • Work-in-process and finished goods accumulating faster than they sell
    • Separating what will still sell from what is already dead
    • The planning and ordering logic that created the build-up
    • Disposition options with the margin consequence of each
    • Where it ends untreated: a liquidation event rather than a margin conversation

  • Continuity

    No line of sight upstream

    You learn a supplier has a problem when the truck does not arrive.

    • Dependencies mapped past tier one, where the real constraints sit
    • Early signals that buy weeks of warning instead of days
    • Contingency and qualified alternates before they are needed
    • The cost today: late orders, expedite freight, and customers who stop treating you as reliable

  • Sourcing Strategy

    Category strategy and the case for change

    Assessment, definition, and the number that justifies acting.

    • Spend assessed and segmented against real transaction data, not the GL
    • Where the addressable opportunity actually sits, category by category
    • Sourcing strategy defined: competitive, consolidate, renegotiate, or leave alone
    • The business case, with savings, working capital, and risk stated separately

  • Sourcing Execution

    Running the events and holding the terms

    Where the strategy either lands or quietly does not.

    • RFI and RFP execution, structured negotiation, and award
    • Terms beyond price: payment terms, service levels, indexation, exit rights
    • Supplier transition and the new process your buyers will actually follow
    • Scorecards and review cadence so performance is measured against what was agreed

  • Recovery

    Contract leakage and cost recovery

    You negotiated one price and are paying another.

    • Contracted terms reconciled against what was actually invoiced
    • Rebates never claimed, tiers never applied, increases that went in without notice
    • Duplicate and erroneous payments, and what of it is recoverable
    • Closing the control gap that allowed it, so it does not refill next year

  • Planning

    Demand and supply planning

    Forecast accuracy is a working capital metric.

    • S&OP cadence with decisions attached, not a meeting that reviews slides
    • Forecast inputs, bias, and accuracy measures that change behaviour
    • Inventory targets and safety stock tied to service level and lead-time variability
    • Wrong one way you carry stock you do not need; wrong the other you miss revenue you had already earned

  • Spend Control

    Procure-to-pay and spend visibility

    Spend you cannot see is spend you cannot manage.

    • Spend taxonomy and reporting built first, so the numbers can be argued with
    • Purchases made outside the process, and the reasons people go around it
    • Duplicate vendors, invoices paid without a match, early-payment discounts left unclaimed
    • Process and system configuration fixed underneath, not policy memos on top

  • Integration

    Post-acquisition supply chain integration

    Two supplier lists, two sets of terms, one synergy number in the model.

    • Overlap identified across vendors, categories, and contracts
    • Consolidation onto the better terms rather than the incumbent ones
    • A combined operating picture the acquirer can report against
    • Delivering what the deal underwrote rather than what it hoped

Most engagements begin with a conversation about what is actually happening in the numbers. Start there.