CASE STUDIES
Case Study: Creating Operational Clarity to Enable Confident Decision-Making in a Logistics Business
Context
I began working with the founder of a growing logistics business at a point where activity was high, but direction was increasingly unclear.
The business spanned multiple moving parts: importing and exporting assets, identifying sales or rental demand, coordinating vehicles, and relying on people on the ground to execute. On paper, progress was being made. In practice, pressure was constant.
The founder was focused on growth and facing several major decisions, but decision-making felt scattered. It was difficult to determine what to prioritise, where to invest, and which moves would actually move the business forward.
From the outset, we agreed to work along the operating path my consulting practice follows: establishing structure first, before pursuing growth or opportunity.
Challenge
As the business grew, management became increasingly difficult—not because things were failing, but because they weren’t visible enough to guide action.
The founder was attempting to operate every side of the business at once. Without clear separation, structure, or reliable data:
Energy was spread thin
Decisions were made reactively
Progress felt disproportionate to effort
Most critically, the founder needed to make decisions around capital allocation, hiring, and asset investment—but lacked the visibility required to know which decisions were the right ones.
He wasn’t short on effort. He was short on clarity.
My Role & Approach
My first task was diagnostic.
I analysed how the business was operating day to day, where friction was appearing, and why decision-making felt heavy despite constant activity. It quickly became clear that the founder was trying to be every part of the business simultaneously.
Together, we clarified three distinct sides of the operation:
Logistics – sourcing, importing, exporting, and identifying where assets should be sold or rented
Operators – the people required to execute work on the ground
Planning and structure – oversight, decision-making, and strategic direction
My role sat firmly in the third.
Once this separation was clear, the priority became visibility. Without it, no strategic decision would be grounded in reality.
I set out to establish:
A central structure that surfaced bookings, assets, and operational activity in one place
Clear information flow between logistics and operators, reducing reliance on memory and manual checking
Dashboards that allowed the business to be studied objectively
A system designed to support decisions around money allocation, hiring, and future investment
The goal was simple: create a clear picture of what was happening now, so next steps could be identified with confidence rather than guesswork.
Outcome
The business became legible. The founder could clearly see:
Where his time was being misused
Which areas required operators rather than founder involvement
What information was needed to make decisions around hiring, vehicles, and reinvestment
How to step out of constant execution and into control
By restoring structure and visibility, decision-making shifted from reactive to deliberate. The business moved from feeling heavy to feeling manageable.
Key Insight
Founders don’t get stuck because they lack drive. They get stuck because everything feels equally important.
By separating roles and restoring visibility, obscurity became strong signal and effort turned into direction.