Skip to content
Consultancy

Case studies

Page 05 of 07

Selected engagements, told plainly.

About these examples

The engagements below are fictional, written to show how this template presents case-study content. Client descriptions, quotes and figures are illustrative and do not describe real organisations or results.

Each engagement follows the same structure: what the leadership team was facing, what we did together, and what changed. No logos, no superlatives.

Showing 6 of 6 engagements

Rows of racking and yellow crates across the floor of a large distribution centre

Logistics Operations

Fictional engagement

Rewiring a regional distributor around two hubs

A regional food and grocery distributor, around 1,400 people12-week design, 9-month delivery

Challenge

Three ageing depots, a growing share of small, frequent orders and a cost-to-serve nobody could explain by customer. Two previous network studies had produced recommendations and no decisions.

Approach

  1. Built cost-to-serve by customer and route with the finance and transport teams, using their own data rather than a model only we understood.
  2. Tested three network options against service, cost and risk with depot managers in the room — including the option to do nothing.
  3. Ran a transformation office through the transition, with weekly service tracking and a clear trigger for pausing each phase.

Outcome

The leadership team chose a two-hub network with a protected service promise for the top customer segments. The transition ran in three phases and the third depot closed on the planned date.

  • −11%

    Cost-to-serve per case

  • 96.4%

    On-time, in-full during transition

  • 3 → 2

    Primary distribution hubs

Illustrative demo figures.

“The model was useful. Having the depot managers argue with it was what made it work.”

— Chief operating officer (illustrative)
An engineer working at a laptop inside an automated production cell

Manufacturing Organisation

Fictional engagement

Helping a founder-led manufacturer build its first leadership team

A family-owned precision components manufacturer, around 900 people10 weeks, then 6-month advisory

Challenge

Thirty years of growth had been run through the founder's office. Every pricing, hiring and capital decision passed across one desk, and a planned succession was eighteen months away.

Approach

  1. Mapped the forty most frequent decisions and who actually made them, then agreed with the founder which ones to let go of first.
  2. Designed a five-person executive team with explicit decision rights, a monthly performance routine and a simple delegation framework.
  3. Coached the founder and incoming leaders through the first two quarters of the new routine.

Outcome

Most operational decisions now sit with the executive team. The founder chairs a quarterly strategy review and the succession is on schedule.

  • 40

    Recurring decisions mapped and reassigned

  • 5

    Roles in the new executive team

  • −60%

    Escalations to the founder's office

Illustrative demo figures.

Electricity transmission towers silhouetted against a low evening sun

Energy Transformation

Fictional engagement

Making two energy-services businesses one operating company

A northern European energy-services group after acquisition, around 2,300 people18-month partnership

Challenge

An acquisition had doubled the group's size and left it with two field-service models, two sets of systems and two cultures that described each other in unflattering terms.

Approach

  1. Agreed the target operating model in six weeks by focusing on the ten processes customers actually notice.
  2. Set up an integration office with a single benefits ledger that finance signed off monthly.
  3. Sequenced the systems migration around the winter peak and trained internal leads to run each later wave.

Outcome

The group now runs one field-service model and one planning system. The integration office was handed to an internal director three months before the end of the partnership.

  • 1

    Field-service model, from two

  • 4 of 4

    Migration waves delivered around peak demand

  • 3 months

    Early handover of the integration office

Illustrative demo figures.

“They were clear from the first week about when they would leave. It changed how seriously we took the handover.”

— Integration director (illustrative)
Looking up at dark glass office towers in a financial district

Financial services Organisation

Fictional engagement

Clarifying who decides what in a specialty insurer

A specialty insurance group with four underwriting businesses14 weeks

Challenge

Group functions and business units each believed the other was slowing them down. Product launches took over a year, and nobody could say where the delay started.

Approach

  1. Traced three recent product launches end to end and timed every approval.
  2. Built a decision-rights map for pricing, product, risk appetite and hiring, tested with each business unit leadership team.
  3. Redesigned the group committee structure from eleven committees to five, each with a written remit.

Outcome

The group adopted the new decision-rights framework and committee structure, with an agreed review after twelve months.

  • 11 → 5

    Group committees

  • −40%

    Approval steps for a new product

  • 4

    Business units on one framework

Illustrative demo figures.

A clinician typing on a laptop with a stethoscope resting on the desk

Healthcare Operations

Fictional engagement

Finding outpatient capacity across a clinical network

An independent clinical network of nine sites8-week diagnostic, 6-month delivery

Challenge

Waiting times were rising while clinicians reported full diaries. Each site scheduled differently, and nobody could see capacity across the network as a whole.

Approach

  1. Analysed a year of appointment data with clinical leads to separate genuine demand from rebooking and no-shows.
  2. Co-designed a common scheduling template with clinicians at two pilot sites before any wider rollout.
  3. Set up a weekly capacity huddle across sites, run by the network's own operations team.

Outcome

The common template now runs at all nine sites, and the weekly huddle has become the network's main operational forum.

  • +14%

    Outpatient appointments per clinic session

  • 9 of 9

    Sites on one scheduling template

  • −5 wks

    Median wait for a first appointment

Illustrative demo figures.

A specialty clothing store with garments displayed on rails and shelves

Retail Strategy & Growth

Fictional engagement

Choosing which growth to stop chasing

A specialty outdoor and apparel retailer, around 60 stores10 weeks

Challenge

The business was pursuing new categories, a marketplace, wholesale and international online sales at once. Revenue was growing; profit and focus were not.

Approach

  1. Built channel and category economics with the finance team, including the cost of management attention.
  2. Ran three leadership sessions to make explicit choices — and recorded the four initiatives the business would stop.
  3. Translated the choices into a one-year plan and a revised store format for the core estate.

Outcome

The leadership team stopped two channels and one category, reinvested in the core store estate and published a one-page strategy to every store manager.

  • 4

    Initiatives deliberately stopped

  • 1 page

    Strategy shared with every store

  • +3.2 pts

    Operating margin, year-one plan

Illustrative demo figures.

Your situation will be different. Let’s talk about it.

Every engagement starts with a conversation about your context, not a case study. Tell us what you are facing.

Start a conversation

Or email hello@consultancy.example