Is the initiative ready to proceed?
We test the business case, the assumptions behind it, the decision owner and the conditions that must be true for the initiative to work.
Output: proceed, reshape or stopA new product, a new market, a new unit, a new system: your company has decided, and someone is accountable for the result. SOPstandard examines that initiative independently — whether it can hold, what it will really take, where it will break — and then, if it holds, builds the operation that carries it and hands that operation over. Then we leave.
Every decided company generates work it has decided to do but cannot yet run. A second product line, a licence, an import structure, a sales force in a country where none exists, an acquisition that has to be integrated, a process still carried by paper and one person's memory. Each of these is real, funded and urgent — and none of them belongs to an existing department.
That gap is our field. We take the initiative as a mandate, establish independently whether it can hold, and then build the operating structure around it: suppliers and contracts, filings and approvals, channel and pricing, people and targets, routines and decision rights. The mandate ends at a defined handover, not at the edge of a retainer. Analysis first, build second — in that order, and the analysis is ours alone: we sell no tools, take no supplier commissions and build no dependency on ourselves.
We work for companies that already operate — with customers, revenue, a team and a reputation. An idea needs an existing business behind it to survive its own launch. We do not validate concepts from a blank page, and we say so before anything is invoiced.
The longest operation we built has been running for twenty years, and continued after its founder's death.
Track recordInitiatives taken from an idea to an operating unit across four sectors, three of them running today.
Track recordof large projects are delivered on budget, on time and with the promised benefits.
Flyvbjerg & Gardner, 16,000+ projectsWhat we build changes with the mandate. The sequence, the acceptance criteria and the handover do not.
Development and contract manufacturing, import and customs, regulatory filings and market authorisation, distribution and pricing architecture, sales structure through to first revenue.
Applied in specialty building materials · premium cigars · spirits · specialty foodTerritory and segment design, selection and onboarding, compensation, pipeline discipline, department structure and decision rights, handover to an internal lead.
Applied in leasing · broadcast · insurance claimsProcess capture and requirements, make-or-buy and vendor direction, acceptance criteria and acceptance, pilot and rollout, adoption, documentation and SOPs.
Most recent mandate: handwritten expense reports to a running process, 50 staffA note on the third area: we do not write software. We specify it, direct the build, set and enforce the acceptance criteria, and hand over the repository, the data and the documentation to the client.
One step in this practice is paid. Everything before it is free, and everything after it is quoted from what that step finds.
Submit a short six-field brief: your name, business email, company details and four focused questions about the initiative. If there is a credible fit, you may receive a personal Loom review at no cost. This is an enquiry only; it does not commission the paid audit.
A short, no-cost screen recording made for your specific initiative. I explain what stands out, what I would examine first, and whether a formal audit appears worthwhile. This is an initial view based on the information you provide — not the audit, not a full investigation and not a paid engagement.
Interviews with management and with the people who will have to run the operation, a review of documents, systems, suppliers and constraints, and a written recommendation. You receive a decision paper, a prioritised risk register, a realistic cost range and a sequenced implementation roadmap. Additional outputs — such as supplier comparisons or a compliance review — are included only where they are material to this specific initiative. The audit is a standalone assignment: you keep the findings and can implement them with your own team or another provider. Where the initiative will not hold, the audit says so, and that is its result.
Framing, stand-up and operation, priced once, against what the audit found rather than against an assumption. Scope, budget, team, dates and the handover protocol are fixed in the same document.
The free Loom review comes first. It is an initial view, not the paid assessment. If a formal audit makes sense, you receive a separate written proposal defining the scope, fee, access and deliverables. No audit begins unless you explicitly accept that proposal. A short conversation is optional and arranged only if useful.
In most engagements, handover means a slide deck, an archive and a consultant who still holds the administrator account. We define it instead as seven transfers, each of which can be inspected. On our most recent system mandate, the client received all seven and can appoint any other supplier tomorrow.
Repository held by the client, all rights transferred.
Complete export; ownership and control remain with the client.
Every account, key, licence and administrative right.
Specification, architecture, data model, operating manual, versioned.
The written routines the operation runs on without its builder.
Tested criteria, signed, with a named list of open points.
Responsibilities and escalation from the first day after handover.
A handover is not the document we leave behind. It is the day the client no longer needs us.SOPstandard · practice principle
Our method is not a preference. It is a response to a documented pattern in project performance, and we publish the reasoning behind it.
We test the business case, the assumptions behind it, the decision owner and the conditions that must be true for the initiative to work.
Output: proceed, reshape or stopWe identify missing capabilities, dependencies, external parties, decisions and the sequence required to move from approval to operation.
Output: cost range, risks and critical pathWe define the operating roles, decision rights, routines, documentation and acceptance conditions needed for a proper handover.
Output: an operation the client can ownA fixed assessment window for one defined initiative, subject to timely access to people and information.
Assessment periodA written scope and fee are agreed before any paid assessment begins.
Before you commitYou retain the decision and the findings. Implementation with SOPstandard is optional.
No implementation lock-inThese nine initiatives are an excerpt of the work we have done, not the full record. Our clients work where supplier structures, margins and approvals are competitive information. Confidentiality is a contractual term in this practice, applied to every client equally.
We do not attribute revenue growth to ourselves. Seven of these operations were run by others after handover; that was the assignment. What can be evidenced is that they existed afterwards. Endurance is harder to counterfeit than a percentage.
Before an audit is commissioned, you can review a representative, anonymised deliverable structure and discuss the experience relevant to your initiative.
We take one kind of mandate: a decided, business-critical initiative inside a company that already runs. Both halves of that sentence exclude more clients than they admit.
Your company is an established operation with customers, revenue and a reputation to protect. Many mandates fit owner-led businesses with roughly 10–150 employees; the deciding factor is not headcount but whether this specific initiative has enough internal execution capacity.
A decision has been taken and a budget attached: a product that needs a route to market, a market that needs a structure, a unit that has to exist, a process that has to stop being paper, an acquisition that has to be integrated.
You — the owner, managing director or the person accountable for the result — would rather know whether the initiative will hold before the budget is spent, not after. A fraction of the initiative's cost to protect the rest is a price you can defend.
One further exclusion: the person who writes to us must be the person who can say yes. We do not run assessments to support an internal pitch.
A useful orientation, not a hard cutoff. Fit depends on the initiative, its risk and the capacity available internally.
Typical company sizeDefined initiative per assessment. Scope, assumptions, access and deliverables are agreed before work starts.
Audit boundaryAccountable sponsor: the owner, managing director or operating lead who can approve the work.
Decision ownerBasis of engagement: fixed fee per stage, quoted after the audit — no hourly billing, no success fees, no revenue share. The audit takes ten working days; engagements typically three to twelve months, with a written exit date at signature. One currency per market; external specialists, licences, travel and taxes are disclosed separately.
Give us a concise picture of what your company is preparing to build, launch or change. If it is a credible fit, you will receive a personal Loom review within two business days.
The first review is free and non-binding. It is not a paid assessment and does not book a paid engagement.
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