I have sat in that chair myself

Where my knowledge comes from

My work sits where supply chain, IT and operations meet. In most companies that is exactly where things go wrong. Not because one department does a bad job, but because they work past each other and nobody sees the whole.

I have seen that from the inside. ERP and WMS implementations. Outsourcing to logistics providers. Getting master data and EDI in order. Supply chains that had seized up, running again.

As an entrepreneur I also went through a bankruptcy. That teaches you more in one year about how a company really works than ten years of consulting.

What makes me angry

Advice that serves the adviser rather than the client. Expensive reports that owe their price to the name on the cover, while anyone could have written what is inside. And above all advisers who clearly have no idea what is actually going on in a business, who lay their standard model over your organisation and leave before anyone has to carry it out.

I work hands-on. That means I come to the shop floor, talk to the people doing the work, and stay until it runs. Advice that cannot be carried out is not advice.

What that means for you

You are dealing with someone who has done it himself. No team of juniors with a senior who turns up for the presentation. No project that extends itself. Whoever sits at your table is also the one doing the work.

And someone who knows within a week where it is really stuck, and says so even when the answer is not the one you hoped for.