Sometimes a cost problem isn't really a cost problem.

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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, with 15 managers. It would have been very easy to look at that structure; decide it was too big and start cutting.

But spending time with the teams told us a different story.

There were good, capable people working hard across the business. The problem was that the work had become fragmented over time. One team owned part of a process, another picked it up further down the line, and activities such as purchasing and project management were happening in several different places. People were busy, but it wasn't always clear who really owned an outcome from beginning to end.

So, we worked with the managers closest to the operation to redesign it around the work that needed to happen. Together, we moved from nine fragmented functions to three end-to-end teams, with much clearer ownership and accountability.

The result was the £500k EBITDA improvement the business needed, alongside a reduction of 10–12 roles, while protecting service quality.

But the thing that stayed with us was more than the saving.

The business didn't have a problem with its people. It had good people trying to deliver inside an operating model that had stopped serving them.

That's an important distinction.

Sometimes the answer to a cost challenge isn't simply to make the organisation smaller. It's to make the organisation work better.

Take the next step to transform structural complexity into organisational velocity:

·       Join the Breakfast Briefing (15 October): Discuss adaptive operating models and sustainable productivity alongside C-suite peers.

·       Take the Business Health Check: Pinpoint where structural fragmentation is impacting your organisation's performance.

Optimise your operating capability: www.smarttasking.com/smart-tom