Operations
The project runs 14 weeks. The invoice goes out in week 15.
Most businesses negotiate payment terms and chase debtors. The larger pool of trapped cash usually sits upstream of the invoice, where nobody is measuring it.
Rialto Bridge
Operations
Articles on operations.
Operations
The estimate is six days. The average is eight.
Most firms know their estimates run short. Far fewer know why the number never moves, and the reason is rarely…
Operations
The service desk closed 1,400 tickets. Six causes made 500 of them.
Most support teams are sized for the volume they receive, not the volume they should be receiving, and the difference…
Operations
The job takes two hours. The day fits three of them.
Mobile service businesses price the job and sell the day. The arithmetic of travel explains why a wider map so…
Operations
Headcount went from 11 to 26. The org chart still has one layer.
The missing management layer looks like an overhead you can defer. The arithmetic usually says it was already being paid…
Operations
The offer is fixed price. The delivery still starts with a blank page.
Packaging a service into a fixed-price offer moves cost risk onto the seller. Most firms take on the risk without…
Operations
Utilisation hit 91%. The lead time tripled.
A modest rise in how busy a business keeps itself can multiply the wait a customer experiences, and the arithmetic…
Operations
The salary gap is £4,000. The vacancy is costing £2,500 a week.
Offers get negotiated with great discipline. Empty desks get counted not at all. The asymmetry is rarely a deliberate decision:…
Operations
Three quotes are required over £5,000. Nothing costs £5,001.
Spending thresholds rarely stop spending. They mostly tell everyone where to stop the invoice, and the pattern is sitting in…
Operations
The supplier is 40% of your cost of sales. You are 3% of their revenue.
Volume alone does not buy leverage. What decides a supplier negotiation is usually settled long before anyone discusses price.
Take it further
This is the general pattern. Your business is the specific case.
Everything here is free to read with an account, and always will be. What it cannot do is tell you which of these applies to your numbers, your market and your constraints. That is the work we do with clients.