The Operating Review
A three-week read of how your operation runs, done with the people who run it, ending in a written verdict you keep whatever happens next. Fixed fee, fixed scope, no obligation to go further. For owner-led and family-owned businesses in the UAE, the GCC and Southeast Asia.
What triggers it
The business has reached a size where the owner is the control: decisions route through him, the numbers arrive late, and the people underneath are busy without the operation getting steadier. Or a deal has closed and two operations are running side by side on goodwill and the owner's personal involvement. Either way, the owner wants a straight answer before he commits to anything: what has to change, what can stay, and whether he needs an outside operator at all.
What happens in the three weeks
Jeff comes to the operation. He sits with the owner, the managers and the people on the floor, watches the work as it is done, and reads the numbers the business already produces. He reads the sites, the central office where there is one, and the handoffs between them, which is where multi-site operations usually break.
Four days on site for a single operation. Six to eight for a business with a central layer above its operating units, or with three or more functions in scope. The rest of the three weeks is the read and the write-up.
During the review Jeff implements nothing, recruits nobody and takes no seat in the business.
What you receive
A written verdict. What must change and what can stay, ranked in the order it has to be dealt with. Where the operation is holding on one person. Whether the successor is already inside the business. What Jeff would do next if asked, and what he would not.
The document is yours. Act on it with your own team, hand it to whoever you hire, or put it in a drawer.
What it can conclude
Any of three things. That the operation needs a fixed period of outside leadership, and what that mandate would look like. That it needs a narrower fix the existing team can carry. Or that the owner does not need us, and does not need the senior role he was about to create.
That last verdict has been given. In 2023 a multi-site retailer in Switzerland brought Jeff in for a newly created senior operations role. Within twelve days his store-by-store read showed the business needed its processes and decision flows realigned, after which it could run itself. He put that in writing, resigned inside his probation period, and took only the pay for the days he had worked.
What happens after
At the owner's choice: nothing further, a fractional or interim engagement, or a post-acquisition integration mandate. The review fee is never credited against later work. That rule protects the verdict, because Jeff has no financial interest in the answer being yes.
How the fee works
One fixed fee, agreed in writing before the review starts. It is set by how many functions have to be read and whether there is a central layer above the operating units, never by site count or sector. Travel and accommodation outside Dubai are invoiced at cost. There is no discount; if the fee is too high for the business, the answer is a narrower scope, named in advance. The figure is given on the first call, once the scope is clear.