Category
5 articles
Process debt is the quiet cost of the fixes that keep a business running. This audit sets out six common workarounds inside UK SMEs, how to price the interest they charge in hours and errors, and how to decide which ones to retire before 2027.
Most UK SME dashboards are inherited, not designed — a museum of numbers that nobody has ever acted on. This opinion piece sets out a plain-English cull process that separates decision-linked measures from board-pack decoration, and rebuilds a smaller set around cash, margin, capacity and customer risk.
Some apparently profitable UK SME accounts quietly consume margin through small orders, frequent changes, rushed deadlines and heavy support demands. This guide shows leaders how to build a practical cost-to-serve view, identify which customers are being subsidised by better ones, and decide whether to reprice, reset expectations or exit.
UK SMEs facing faster payment demands, shorter supplier commitments and higher minimum orders need a practical response, not a procurement department. This 2026 playbook covers supplier segmentation, contract clauses, cash-flow stress testing and simple contingency plans that protect margins and customer promises.
A quarterly one-page operations review can give UK SME leaders a calmer, clearer view of cash, capacity, customer promises and people risks. This practical guide explains how to run the ritual, what to put on the page and how one 35-person services firm caught a delivery bottleneck before it became a growth problem.