What a 14-day operations diagnosis gives a founder

Most founders we talk to already own a consultant's deck. It usually runs to forty slides and a dozen recommendations, and nobody in the firm can say which one to start on next Monday. A founder running an 80 crore distribution business doesn't need twelve things to fix. The founder needs to know whether the real block is the credit approvals that only the founder signs, the stock plan that lives with one person, or a sales desk that promises dates the warehouse can't meet. Diagnose picks one, and the page says why it's that one and not the others.

• The block, in one sentence. This answers the question the founder came with: what do we fix first?

• Three pieces of evidence, taken from the firm's own numbers and its own people. This shows the answer isn't our opinion.

• The first move, with a named owner from the founder's team and a start date. This is what someone actually does in week one.

• What "better in 30 days" looks like, in a number the firm already tracks. This lets the founder check the move worked without us in the room.

• What not to do yet. This is often the most useful line on the page, because it stops money going into a fix that should come second.

Take a made-up firm that ships 600 orders a week, where 1 in 5 goes out late. The founder thinks the warehouse is slow. The page says most late orders start at the sales desk, where dates are promised before anyone checks stock. The evidence is the share of late orders that were promised without a stock check, the number of times a week the founder overrules a dispatch call, and what two sales heads said when asked how they set a date ("we give the date the customer wants, then we chase").

The first move is one rule on who can promise a date, owned by the sales head and starting on the 15th. Better in 30 days means late orders down from 20 percent to 12 percent. Not yet: a new warehouse system. The firm and its numbers are invented, so read them as the shape of the page and not as a result.

We need access to the sales, cost and cash numbers. We also need eight to ten short talks of about 45 minutes with people at different levels, not only the leadership team, because the people closest to the work usually know where it sticks. One person inside the firm has to be able to open doors for us. If the numbers can't be shared, we'll say so before any money changes hands.

We'd rather say this up front. Diagnose won't help if nobody in the room can approve a change, if the numbers can't be shared, or if the decision is already made and the founder only wants a stamp on it. A 30-minute call is usually enough to tell which case a firm is in, and we'll say it on the call.

Some founders take the page and run the first move with their own team, and that's a good outcome. Others ask us to build the fix with them, which is the Install. If a firm goes on to the Install, the Diagnose fee is credited to it.

If you'd like a lighter first step, the free Structural Health Report at metmov.com/diagnostic gives a short written read on where the firm stands. To ask about Diagnose itself, book a 30-minute call with Anjani or Chaitanya.