First work alongside you. Then automate.
A business cannot be understood in two interviews. So I do not start with an analysis, I start with work – and only propose something afterwards.
The sequence
What happens, and in what order
Thirty minutes on the phone
You describe your situation. I ask where the time goes and who decides what. At the end I tell you whether I see any leverage.
This call is free, because it is a selection for me too: I do not take on every mandate.
Half a day at your place
I come into the business, not into the meeting room. I look over the shoulders of the people doing the work and ask the questions that have to come from outside.
By the end of the day you get a first assessment: what is worth doing, what is not, and what you can handle without me.
A few days working alongside you
I work like a new colleague. I answer enquiries, cost jobs, use the same programs as your team and hit the same walls.
That is the part nobody else does – and the reason the proposals that follow fit your business rather than an industry slide.
Build, measure, hand over
We pick the two or three points with the greatest leverage and finish them – for daily use, not as a trial.
We measure against what applied before: time per quotation, turnaround, error rate. Then I hand over properly, including the answer to who maintains it from here.
You can stop after any step. There is no minimum term and no framework agreement.
If something is already on the table
If you already have concrete plans, we skip half of this list.
Some businesses do not call with a problem but with a plan: a quote from a vendor, a project idea from the team, a half-built tool that does not run smoothly.
Then my job is a different one. I assess what is on the table and guide you strategically – up to the decision and beyond it.
- Whether the numbers add up, and which assumptions they stand or fall on
- Whether the vendor delivers what they promise – and what the contract leaves out
- What dependency and running costs you are taking on
- Which order makes sense when several ideas are in play
Principles
How I decide
Measurable or not at all
Every measure gets a number up front that it has to be judged against. If no number can be found, it is not a measure, it is an opinion.
On site, not by video
What gets called across between two desks appears in no process diagram. That is exactly where the interesting problems sit.
Finished, not almost finished
The last twenty per cent decide whether something gets used. A tool that still needs adjusting does not count as delivered.
No new silo
I do not build anything only I can maintain. Once I am gone your team has to be able to handle it – otherwise we have merely moved your problem.
Short mandates
I am not out to settle in. A good mandate ends because it is finished, not because the budget ran out.
Honest no
If your problem is solved by a better template or a setting in the software you already have, I say so – even when it costs me the mandate.
Questions
What I get asked most
What does it cost?
The first call, nothing. Everything after that is charged on a time and materials basis at a fixed day rate.
I give you the figure in the call, because it depends on what you need: half a day of assessment is a different matter from several weeks of delivery. What I can tell you now: it is not the cheapest option on the market, and the effort usually pays for itself within months.
Why should I let you work in the business? That costs us time.
Yes, a few hours. The alternative costs more: a project built past reality because nobody asked why a routine is the way it is.
I am not a visitor who needs looking after. I take on work that has to be done anyway.
Our data is a mess. Does this still work?
In most businesses the data is untidy, and in most cases that is not an obstacle. You just have to know which mess matters and which does not.
It only gets dangerous when someone sells you a two-year data project first. That is almost never necessary.
What happens to our data?
What I see in the business stays in the business. I sign a confidentiality agreement as a matter of course, and I name no client names afterwards – which is why this website carries no reference list.
When choosing tools we settle in advance where your data is processed. Many tasks need no provider outside Switzerland or the EU.
Are you replacing jobs?
The businesses I work in are short of people, not overstaffed. What disappears are the tasks nobody enjoys: retyping, renaming, chasing, searching.
If your goal is cutting headcount, I am the wrong person.
How soon do we see something?
A first assessment after half a day. Something running and used daily, usually after two to four weeks.
If someone promises you a finished solution after three days, they either have not understood your problem or they are selling you a subscription.
The first step is a phone call.
Thirty minutes, no preparation. Afterwards you know whether the next step is worth taking.
Free and without obligation.