Operations review
Eleven weeks looking at how work actually moves through your company, ending with a ranked list of changes, the cost of each and who inside your team owns it.
See what is included →
Free first meeting · 90 minutes
We fix the operations problem, then we leave.
Northcape works with owner-managed companies between $2m and $80m in revenue. Most engagements last eleven weeks, end with a handover document your own team can run, and are quoted as a fixed fee before we start.
We take four new clients a quarter. If we are the wrong firm for your problem, the first meeting ends with the name of someone better rather than a proposal.
11 weeks
median engagement length
0
Engagements since 2016
0
Consultants, all employed
0%
Clients who return within 3 years
0
New clients a quarter, capped
What we do
Four kinds of work, and nothing else
A consultancy that does everything is a consultancy that has learned nothing twice. These four overlap enough to share a method and are narrow enough to have a method at all.
Cash and margin
Where the money is tied up and which product lines are quietly unprofitable once delivery, returns and the hours are counted properly. Usually the shortest engagement and the largest number.
See what is included →Systems selection
Choosing and implementing the ERP, warehouse or field system you will live with for a decade. We take no commission from any vendor, and that is in the engagement letter.
See what is included →Interim management
One of our people sits in the operations or finance seat for three to nine months while you hire properly. Capped at nine months, because past that we are the problem.
See what is included →
How an engagement runs
Eleven weeks, four stages, one document at the end
The same shape every time, so you can tell in week three whether it is working rather than in week nine.
Stage 1
Look
Two consultants on site, watching the work rather than interviewing about it. We ask for no reports in this stage and we produce none.
Weeks 1–3Stage 2
Measure
The three things that looked worst, counted properly. This is where a suspicion becomes a number your finance director will accept.
Weeks 4–6Stage 3
Change one thing
We implement the top item with your team, not for them. If it does not move the number in three weeks, we say so and stop rather than adding a second initiative.
Weeks 7–9Stage 4
Hand over
A document naming every remaining change, its value, its owner and its sequence — written so your team can run it without us, which is the point.
Weeks 10–11
Published with permission
Three results, with the figures
Full write-ups, including what did not work, are on the case studies page.
-31%
order-to-despatch time
A picking route rebuilt around how the racking actually is, not how the drawing says. No new equipment and no headcount change.
Homeware distributor · 62 staff$412k
released from stock in one quarter
Fourteen product lines discontinued after their true contribution was measured, and the reorder rule rewritten for the remaining forty.
Building products · 140 staff9 pts
gross margin, sustained two years
Pricing rebuilt around delivery cost per drop rather than per invoice. Two customers left; both were losing money.
Food service · 38 staffCompanies that have worked with us and agreed to be named
The first meeting is ninety minutes and it is free.
Bring the problem and one person who knows the numbers. You leave with our read on it whether or not you hire us — and about half the time that read is "you do not need a consultant for this".
- Fixed fee quoted before any work starts
- No commission from any software vendor, ever
- Handover document your team owns outright