Selected work

Results, with the caveats attached.

Every figure on this page was verified against the client's own reported numbers twelve months after we left. Where a programme underdelivered, or where we can't publish a name, that's stated rather than omitted.

£2.4bnClient EBITDA impact tracked to the P&L since 2009

300+Engagements completed at roughly eighteen a year

78%Of revenue from clients we've served before

12 moAfter close, when every published number is re-checked

Full records

Three clients who agreed to be named.

Publication is a clause we ask for and rarely get. These three reviewed and approved every figure below, including the ones that didn't flatter the programme.

01 — Industrials

Kessler Industrial

Turnaround across four European plants · 14 months · Operations

Kessler was losing money on its highest-volume line and couldn't say why. Three previous cost programmes had taken out overhead without touching the line itself, because nobody could produce a costing anyone trusted below plant level.

We rebuilt product-level costing from the shop floor up over five weeks — on shift, across all four plants. Two SKUs turned out to consume 40% of changeover time for 3% of volume; both were killed. Three supply contracts the procurement team had been told were fixed were reopened and renegotiated. The board's condition throughout was that no site closed, and none did.

"They found the loss in week two. It took us three years not to." Group Operations Director, Kessler Industrial

£41mAnnualised EBITDA improvement

31%Reduction in changeover downtime

2×Inventory turns on the core line

0Site closures — the board's condition

What we'd do differently

We spent the first three weeks in the data room before going to the floor. On a plant problem that sequence is backwards, and it cost the engagement most of a month.

02 — Financial services

Arden Mutual

Core platform business case & delivery oversight · 9 months · Digital & data

A £180m modernisation had reached 60% of spend and roughly 20% of delivery. The programme was not failing loudly — it was reporting green against milestones that had been rewritten twice.

We rescoped to the eleven capabilities that measurably moved cost-to-serve, from forty-seven in the original plan, and retired the rest rather than deferring them to a phase two nobody would fund. The benefits case was rebuilt so the audit committee could track it monthly against the ledger instead of annually against a slide.

"The first honest number anyone had given the committee." Chair of the Audit Committee, Arden Mutual

£64mProgramme scope removed, not deferred

19moCut from the delivery runway

−22%Cost-to-serve per policy, year one

11Capabilities kept, from 47 proposed

What we'd do differently

Two of the eleven retained capabilities were still not live at the twelve-month re-check. We sized the delivery organisation's capacity optimistically, and the sequencing we recommended assumed a hiring rate the client never achieved.

03 — Healthcare

Meridian Health Group

Post-merger integration, 9 hospitals · 18 months · M&A and integration

Two systems had merged on paper and nowhere else. Fourteen months after close, the group was still running two procurement functions, two formularies and nine different versions of four core clinical pathways.

We consolidated procurement across all nine sites and standardised the four pathways with the physician leads rather than around them — slower by roughly two months, and the reason adoption held after we left. The CFO reconciled a synergy tracker to the ledger monthly; realised synergies came in at $57m against a $48m target, or 119% of plan.

"The clinicians ran the pathway work. That's why it stuck." Chief Medical Officer, Meridian Health Group

$57mSynergies realised against $48m target

−14%Supply spend across nine sites

96%Clinician adoption of new pathways

1Missed milestone, disclosed in month 7

What we'd do differently

The month-seven milestone was missed because we let pharmacy integration run without a named clinical owner for six weeks. It was disclosed to the board the week it slipped, but it should not have been possible to slip.

On published results

A result with no caveat attached is a result nobody re-checked.

Claire Whitlock · Partner, M&A and Integration Northgate Partners, London

Under confidentiality

Nine more, described as far as we're permitted.

Most clients don't allow publication. These are described by sector and size only — the figures are verified on the same twelve-month basis, but we can't tell you who they are, and we won't hint.

Industrials

A mid-market packaging manufacturer

Pricing rebuilt around willingness-to-pay by account rather than cost-plus, after eleven years of uniform annual uplifts.

+7.4%Gross margin, eighteen months after rollout

Logistics

A European freight operator

Network redesign across seventeen depots, with two closures the client had ruled out at the start and accepted on the evidence.

−12%Cost per consignment, year one

Banking

A regional retail bank

Tech due diligence on an acquisition target. We advised against the price; the client renegotiated and completed 9% lower.

−9%Off the agreed purchase price

Chemicals

A specialty chemicals group

Portfolio review across six business units. Two were divested, one of which had never been formally questioned internally.

2Units divested from six reviewed

Healthcare

A private hospital group

Theatre scheduling and utilisation across four sites, run with the clinical directors on a twelve-week diagnostic.

+18%Theatre utilisation, sustained at re-check

Utilities

A regulated energy distributor

Capital programme prioritisation ahead of a price control review, built to survive the regulator's own challenge.

£210mCapital resequenced, not cut

Private equity

A mid-market buyout fund

Commercial diligence across four targets in one year. Two proceeded, two did not on our read.

4Diligence reads — two recommended against

Insurance

A specialist underwriter

Claims operating model rebuilt around segmentation the team had proposed internally twice and never been funded to run.

−16%Claims handling cost per case

Manufacturing

An automotive components supplier

Cost programme that underdelivered. We recovered roughly 60% of the target and told the board in month four that the rest was not available.

60%Of target delivered — the shortfall disclosed early

How we verify

What "verified" means here.

Consulting results are easy to overstate and hard to audit. This is the standard every figure on this page had to meet before we published it.

01 — Client's own figures

Numbers come from the client's reported management accounts, not from our model of what should have happened.

02 — Twelve months after

We re-check a year after the engagement closes. A saving that didn't survive the year isn't a saving we claim.

03 — Finance sign-off

The client's finance function confirms each figure in writing before it appears here, including the caveats.

04 — Shortfalls published

Where a programme underdelivered we publish the shortfall next to the target, as on the automotive case above.

Start a conversation

Your problem probably isn't on this page.

It rarely is. Tell us the question you can't get a straight answer to, and a partner will reply within two working days — sometimes with a referral elsewhere.

Start a conversation How we engage

The practices

Each practice page sets out the team shape, the typical length, and when we'd tell you not to run the programme at all.

Practices & engagement models