Gareth Greppellini · 9 November 2026 · 5 min read
Thinking that stays close to the work.
Articles and perspectives from practitioners who embed until results are real.
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82 articles.
Adam Young · 20 October 2026 · 6 min read
Don’t jump ahead: why 80% of enterprise AI initiatives stall (and how to fix the operations underneath)
By Adam Young, Managing Partner at smart/tasking Having spent nearly four decades building, scaling, acquiring, and transforming businesses, I’ve seen the exact same technology trap play out in every major cycle. Orga…
smart/tasking · 6 October 2026 · 4 min read
Spotlight On... Rob Bullen
Commercial Transformation Leader & Client Partner at smart/tasking With over 25 years of board-level leadership experience, Rob Bullen is a commercial transformation leader who excels at restoring performance and drivin…
Niall Anderson · 28 September 2026 · 5 min read
Lesson 6: Collaborate and co-create value - don’t impose solutions
Traditional strategy consultancies love to sell a beautiful, static blueprint, hand it over, and call it 100% of the value. But real, sustainable impact cannot be imposed from the outside - it has to be co-created. In…
Gary Gamp · 24 September 2026 · 4 min read
Lesson 5: Managing expectations means holding stakeholders to account early - before the horse has bolted
For the fifth lesson in our 10 Lessons for 10 Years series, Sophie Pentony sat down with our CXO, Gary Gamp, to discuss why managing expectations isn't a corporate cliché - it's the foundation of accountability. Because…
Niall Anderson · 23 September 2026 · 6 min read
Lesson four: Differentiate, disrupt and don't blend in
If Lesson two, was about understanding your client, Lesson four is about making sure they remember you. In crowded markets, it's easy to become just another provider saying the same things, using the same language and o…
Gareth Greppellini · 15 September 2026 · 3 min read
Why your Target Operating Model should never really be finished
An acquisition or transformation programme can reshape a business overnight. AI and automation redefine capability needs. Cost bases shift, customer expectations evolve, and executive leadership adjusts the strategy. No…
Adam Young · 8 September 2026 · 6 min read
Before you change the organisation, understand the one you already have
When we're brought into an organisation, there's usually already a view about what's wrong. There are too many layers, a team doesn't have enough capacity, a process isn't working as it should, or perhaps the structure…
Chris Carlisle · 7 September 2026 · 4 min read
Do you know what your operating model is costing you?
Most leadership teams can easily tell you what they spend on people, technology, and suppliers. What is much harder to calculate is how much of that investment is lost in the gap between strategic ambition and daily exe…
Daniel Dunlop · 7 September 2026 · 2 min read
Sometimes a cost problem isn't really a cost problem.
We worked with an organisation that needed to find £500k of EBITDA from its back-office operation. On paper, the numbers immediately pointed towards headcount. There were 45 people working across nine sub-functions, wit…
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