Operations work in practice

Design and production studio · 5 months, results within 12 weeks

Taking the director out of daily decisions

Result: within 12 weeks, 30% fewer decisions reached the director, about 10 hours a week back and about 20% less production rework. A premium studio of about 25 people and €1.2m turnover, covering design, manufacturing and, in some cases, installation. The business was growing, but only as fast as its director could personally approve the work.

The challenge

Every decision escalated to the director. The design team worked from ambiguous briefs, and production and installation were coordinated informally, so problems surfaced late. Root cause: decisions had no owner, roles were unclear, briefs had no standard and there was no shared view of projects.

What we did

Designed the org structure and decision rights. Created a project management model across design, production and installation with live visibility for every stakeholder. Standardised client briefing and the core SOPs.

Results

Within 12 weeks, 30% fewer decisions reached the director, production rework fell by about 20%, and the director got back about 10 hours a week. Routine decisions stopped escalating to the director. The team works from clear briefs with one shared view of every project. The director moved from operational decisions to client relationships and business development. Measured by counting the director's ad hoc meetings and phone calls, and jobs redone, before and after. After handover, the team runs the project model, briefing standard, decision rules and SOPs on its own.

Deliverables: org structure and decision rights · project management model · client briefing standard · SOP framework

Premium mobility · Fractional Operations Director · November 2024 to March 2026

Launching a premium chauffeur service in six countries

Result: launches in 8 cities across 6 countries, without proportional headcount growth. A European mobility platform was launching a premium chauffeur service for corporate and tourism customers, a high-expectation market with variable demand.

The challenge

The existing ride-hailing set-up did not fit premium scheduling and dispatch. Local teams had no shared service standard, so delivery varied by region. Executive leadership was pulled into daily execution. Root cause: a dispatch set-up not built for a premium service, and no repeatable launch method.

What we did

Mapped end-to-end customer and partner journeys. Built city launch playbooks, standardised SOPs for booking, routing and invoicing, a pricing benchmark tool and a partner onboarding framework. Fed product gaps back to the product team.

Results

Launches in 8 cities across 6 countries. Partner retention improved. Executive leadership handed operational execution to the new systems and refocused on strategy. Scale achieved without proportional headcount growth. After handover, local teams onboarded partners themselves using the partner onboarding framework.

Deliverables: launch playbooks · booking, routing and invoicing SOPs · pricing benchmark tool · partner onboarding framework · performance reviews

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