Keep the margin you win.
Winning work is only half the problem. This stage covers what happens after the contract is signed: margin, utilisation, the founder ceiling, and building the kind of operation a buyer will pay a real multiple for.
Strategy
Operating Model Design
Set up how the firm runs its time and money so margin does not slip as it grows. The time portfolio across billable and the non-billable work that builds the future, a target for each bucket, the management cadence that keeps it honest, and a sequence for getting the founder off the tools without losing quality.
Build
Operating Model Implementation
Most firms cannot see whether a job is making money until it is finished and the money is already made or lost. This is the operating model kept live: project margin, realisation and utilisation visible while there is still time to act, and the firm's time portfolio run as a system rather than reconstructed from the accounts each quarter. Delivered on Thyme, our operating platform for project-based consulting firms.
AI-Augmented Reports
No two environmental reports are the same, but the structure of your common report types is. Build templates that fix that architecture for the reports worth productising, and govern them the way software teams govern code: a controlled process that holds each template true while still letting staff push improvements into it. With the structure set, stop copying and pasting out of old reports and reuse the assets you have already written, then let an AI agent draft the first cut from a defined set of inputs you give it. The expert refines a real draft instead of rebuilding the report from scratch.
ISO 9001, AI-Assisted
Certification matters for tender eligibility, and the usual path buries a firm in documentation. Implement ISO 9001 using AI tooling to generate and maintain the document set, so you get certified without a year of admin.
Start here