Field Note · Operations

What an operations consultant actually does, and what we don’t.

Mark Champion, MCSEReviewed October 20263-minute read

An operations consultant works out how your business really runs, redesigns the parts that cost you time and money, and helps the change stick. A good one also builds and tests what they recommend, and stays long enough to see it work.

That’s the short answer. The longer one matters, because “operations consultant” covers everything from a strategist with a slide deck to a software reseller with a new title, and an owner can spend real money finding out which one they hired.

What the work looks like

Most engagements move through the same four steps, whatever the firm calls them.

First, find out how the business actually runs. Not what the org chart says, and not what the owner thinks happens. That means short interviews with the people who do the work: who takes the order, where it waits, which system holds the real number, what happens on the day someone is out. The result is a map, and it usually shows the same pattern: information typed into two places, handoffs nobody owns, and a few people quietly holding the whole thing together.

Second, decide what each process should be. This is where good work and bad work part company. The tempting move is to automate what’s there. The better question comes first: should this step exist at all? Sometimes the answer is to remove a step, merge two lists, or give a handoff an owner. Automating a broken process gets you a faster broken process.

Third, build it, and test it before it goes live. Written procedures people actually use. Roles and handoffs. Reporting that arrives without someone assembling it on a Friday. Automations, where they earn their place. Each change should be proven before it replaces the old way: piloted with one team, run beside the old method, or checked away from live work.

Fourth, keep it running. A system nobody maintains decays back into the thing you hired someone to fix. Somebody has to watch the numbers, keep the procedures current, and adjust as the business changes.

What it isn’t

• A report. If the engagement ends with a document and a handshake, the hard part comes back to you at exactly the moment it starts.
• Software sales. A new system is sometimes the answer and often isn’t. You should see the reasoning, the cost, and the option of leaving things as they are.
• Your IT provider. Keeping the computers working and designing how the business runs are different jobs. We do both, as separate teams; managed IT lives at opsworq.net.
• Your CPA or your attorney. An operations consultant works beside them, and should make their jobs easier, not take them over.

Signs it’s time

• The same question gets three different answers, depending on who you ask.
• Every decision still waits for the owner.
• Month-end slips, and the numbers arrive too late to act on.
• Good people leave because the handoffs are chaos.
• You’re about to grow, sell, buy or open another location, and the business runs on memory.

Signs it isn’t

If one person can still hold the whole business in their head, it’s usually too early. The same goes for a business where nothing is changing and everyone is content with how it runs. A good consultant will say so, and point you somewhere cheaper.

Five questions to ask any operations consultant, including us

1. Will you talk to the people who do the work, or only to leadership?
2. Do you build what you recommend, or hand it to someone else?
3. How do you test a change before it goes live?
4. What happens after the recommendations are delivered?
5. What will it cost, in writing, before you start?

What it costs with us

Short, specific jobs are hourly at $150. Discovery and the Operational Map are quoted per client and fixed in writing before we start; a typical range is $3,000 to $6,000. The map is yours whether or not you continue.

Rates as published on our pricing page.