Margin melts away, with no named cause
"I just discovered €1M of unbudgeted costs." Revenue holds, profitability erodes, and each department has an explanation that concerns only itself.
When to call us
Operational crisis: taking back control
Profitability is falling and nobody can say exactly where it goes. Projects are drifting, a client threatens to leave, managers are wearing out and people keep resigning. This is the moment to call in an outside view: before the crisis settles into the accounts, and into the teams.
The signals
An operational crisis rarely announces itself with a single figure.
It announces itself in sentences. We hear them every week, and each says the same thing: the information that would have made it possible to decide in time never reached the leadership.
Projects drift in silence
"The client told me about the delay. I would have preferred it came from the team, who had known for two months." The drift is discovered at invoicing, when it can no longer be recovered.
A client demands penalties
"A client wants to end its contract. Why did nobody warn me?" The commitments made were tracked nowhere, and nobody can say who promised what.
People keep leaving
One project manager leaves, then two. The best first, because they find work elsewhere. Those who stay inherit their workload, and staff turnover feeds itself.
Everything rests on one person
"He is away for six months, and he alone knows how to handle this subject that every project depends on." The organization holds together through people, not through roles.
Leadership no longer leads
"I'm in meetings all the time." Emergencies fill the whole calendar, every decision climbs to the top, and nobody has time left to look at the whole.
Why it costs so much
Margin, projects and teams drag one another down.
A project that drifts wears out the team carrying it; a team that disengages ends up costing the client; a lost client weighs on margin, which pushes more load onto the remaining teams. The three figures below are public, and they describe the same spiral.
31%
of projects are truly successful
The Standish Group, CHAOS 2020, more than 50,000 projects8%
of employees are engaged in their work in France
Gallup, State of the Global Workplace 202670%
of a team's engagement comes down to its manager
Gallup, State of the Global Workplace 2026Replacing a skilled employee costs, according to Gallup, between half and twice their annual salary. Three departures in a project team therefore represent, at the low end of the range, one and a half times an annual salary: that is the order of magnitude to compare with the cost of an intervention. We put forward no other figure: the rest depends on your organization, and is measured at your end.
The intervention
Listen, decide, then set up what will hold without us.
An operational crisis is handled neither by a report nor by software. It is handled in the field, with the people living it, and it ends when the organization can steer by itself again.
Listen where it happens
Executive committees, team meetings, project reviews, interviews with managers and, where possible, with clients. We look for the gap between what is said and what happens, and for the common cause of the symptoms.
Treat what is bleeding first
Drifting projects, the client who threatens to leave, the team on the verge of breaking: quick decisions, prioritized by the Pareto principle, because 20% of causes produce 80% of effects. The business leader decides; we prepare and follow up.
Set up simple rituals
A committee that decides, commitments that are tracked, a voice from the teams that comes up and is acted on. Then we hand them over: to executives, to managers, to project managers, until they run them alone.
After the crisis, the shadow board
An organization emerging from a crisis stays fragile for a few months. The same outside view can stay beside it, at a low pace, one or two leadership meetings a month: that is the shadow board, the approach we recommend so that the recovery lasts.
The field
We held these posts before supporting others in them.
Operations management of IT services companies, project management, technical management, information systems management. Each time we took up a post, the situation was the same: falling profitability, drifting projects, doubting clients, teams under strain.
2
service centers turned around
1
software vendor turned around
2
customer services restructured
1
professional services team restructured
And a great many drifting projects put back on track. One example: on a major project, €200,000 of work in progress remained blocked. It was enough to show the client the project's history, what had been requested, decided and approved, and by whom: within five minutes of a meeting, responsibilities were established and the outstanding amount was recovered. The cases, anonymized, are on our results page.
Depending on the crisis
Four levers, used together or separately.
Shadow board
An outside view beside the leadership, which prepares and stress-tests decisions. During the crisis, and above all after it.
Operational mentoring
Supporting business leaders and managers in their real situations, until they run the steering rituals alone. This is the lever for staff turnover: a supported manager keeps their team.
Operational structuring
Service centers, customer services, professional services teams: roles, processes, indicators. When the crisis comes from the organization itself.
Project structuring
Scoping, governance, tracking of contractual commitments, turnaround of drifting projects. When the crisis comes from one or more projects.
Frequently asked questions
What we are asked in a crisis.
What is an operational crisis?
It is a situation where execution itself damages the company: profitability falling for no identified reason, projects drifting, clients threatening to leave, teams wearing out and people resigning one after another. It differs from a financial or legal crisis: the accounts are the consequence, not the origin.
When should we call in an outside view?
As soon as the same symptoms come back from one committee to the next and nobody can name the cause. The earlier the intervention, the shorter it is: a drift discovered at invoicing costs far more than one seen in the first month.
How is this different from court-supervised receivership?
Court-supervised receivership is a collective proceeding, conducted under a court's control. We step in earlier, on organization and steering, while the company still has all its options. If the situation calls for a formal proceeding, we say so from the first interview.
How does an operational crisis worsen staff turnover?
It first loads the best people, who leave first because they find work elsewhere. Their workload passes to those who stay, and the spiral feeds itself. Since a team's engagement depends largely on its manager, supporting managers is often the first lever.
How long does an intervention last?
The first improvements arrive within a few weeks; deeper transformations run over three to six months, depending on the organization's maturity. The shadow board then takes over, at a low pace, with no minimum term.
Does the situation sound familiar?
30 minutes, free and confidential, to talk it over with someone who has been through it.
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