Services
The problems I fix, in the words owners use.
You will not find a list of technologies here. Owners do not wake up wanting a CRM or an AI model — they wake up worried about margin, cash, a customer they nearly lost, or a number they do not trust. So this page is organised the same way: by what is costing you.
Recognise one of these, and a short call turns it into a defined piece of work: find it, prove it from your own numbers, fix it at the smallest sensible scale.
How an engagement works
It starts with one problem, not a programme. I look at where the money, time or control is actually leaking, quantify it from your own data, and agree in writing what fixing it involves and what it costs — before anything starts.
The price depends on your business. A review of a twenty-person distributor and a two-hundred-person manufacturer are genuinely different pieces of work, so I will not pretend to price either from a web page. What I can promise is that the number comes before the work, and that if the job turns out to be different from what we agreed, we stop and re-scope rather than let a bill run.
In Hong Kong I work on the ground. Across Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, Australia and New Zealand the work runs remotely and fractionally — which for this kind of analysis and building is usually an advantage.
Margin and cost
Busy, but the margin is not there
Revenue looks fine and the profit does not follow. The leak is usually several small ones: things bought at different prices by different people, renewals nobody re-reads, work done and never billed. I took 40% out of one contracting group’s IT running costs without the business losing a working hour.
- “We pay different prices for the same thing depending on who orders it.” Procurement variance traced from your own purchase data, and a simple control so it stops recurring.
- “Our software and IT bill keeps creeping up.” Everything you run, who uses it and what it costs — then what to cancel, consolidate and renegotiate.
- “A supplier has quoted for a big job and I can’t tell if it’s fair.” An independent read before you sign: what it really includes, what it commits you to, and where the price climbs after year one.
Reporting
Numbers you do not fully trust
If the monthly report is a spreadsheet someone rebuilds by hand, two people will give you two different answers to the same question — and decisions wait for the argument to finish.
- “Month-end takes a fortnight and still has to be checked.” The figures pulled together from the systems you already run, automatically, so the report is a by-product rather than a project.
- “I can’t see which customers, products or jobs actually make money.” Margin by line, by customer and by site, so you are steering with the right instrument.
- “Head office never quite knows what the other offices are doing.” One view across sites and markets instead of a stack of local spreadsheets.
Sales and follow-up
Quotes that do not turn into orders
Most SMEs do not have a sales problem so much as a follow-up problem. Quotes go out and nobody chases. Orders fall into the gap between the person who sold and the people who deliver.
- “We send quotes and then forget about them.” A pipeline that tells someone, on the right day, which quote to chase — and shows you what is sitting unconverted.
- “Quoting takes too long, so we lose to faster competitors.” A quote or cost calculator your people can use in front of the customer, priced from your own rates.
- “Orders get keyed in twice and something always goes wrong.” Sales and operations joined up so the order moves by itself rather than by copy and paste.
Operations and supply
A supplier, a warehouse or a system let you down
The expensive version of this is finding out from the customer. For Thrift Logistics, a warehouse management system built from the ground up took picking errors down by 99% — which is felt in returns, credit notes and customers kept, not in a report.
- “We keep shipping the wrong thing, or the right thing late.” Where the errors actually originate, and the smallest change that stops them.
- “A key system fell over and we were stuck for days.” Recovery first, then making sure it cannot happen the same way again — with backups that are tested, not assumed.
- “Everything stops when one supplier or one system has a bad week.” The single points of failure found and dealt with before the next bad week.
Knowledge and documents
It all depends on one person’s head
The business knows a great deal, but it lives in inboxes, desktops and memories. When that person is away, or leaves, the knowledge goes too. I have built secure data rooms for Terramillem Capital and Turnaround Asia Advisors, and document systems for contractors and consultants across the region.
- “Nobody can find the current version.” One controlled place for files — working at speed across offices and into the mainland — that people can actually ask questions of.
- “We’re raising money, selling, or being looked at.” A data room the other side can navigate without you handing over the keys to everything.
- “When she leaves, we’re in trouble.” The process written down and built into the system, so capability stays with the business.
Compliance and control
Exposure you would rather find before someone else does
Who can see what. Whether the backups would really restore. Whether the record would stand up if a client, an auditor or a lawyer asked for it. These are quiet risks until the day they are not.
- “I don’t really know who has access to what.” Access reviewed and tightened — a common finding is an ex-employee with a live link.
- “If we had to produce the full record tomorrow, we couldn’t.” Records structured so they can be produced in hours, not pulled together over a fortnight.
- “Staff are pasting things into AI tools and I have no idea what.” Plain-English guardrails on what data goes where, and an approved way to use it.
Decisions
A decision you cannot call alone
A new office or market, a large system purchase, an acquisition, a board asking about AI. Real money, and nobody in the business whose job it is to weigh it up independently.
- “We’re opening in another country and don’t know how it will all connect.” Systems, files and people across locations designed before the lease is signed, not after.
- “Three vendors, three proposals, none comparable.” What each really includes, what it locks you into, and what I would do in your position.
- “I’m not sure our IT provider is doing a good job.” An independent view — and if they are good, I will tell you that too.
How the fixes get built
AI and custom systems are the engine, not the pitch
Most of the fixes above end in something built: a tracker, a calculator, an integration, a reporting pipeline, an assistant that reads documents. AI-assisted development has changed what that costs, enough that work which was a six-figure project a few years ago is often days now.
That is why the smallest sensible fix is now affordable. It is also why you need someone who knows which corners not to cut — and who will tell you when an off-the-shelf product would serve you better than anything custom.
Not sure any of these is quite it?
This page is a sample, not the whole of it. More than twenty years across business, marketing and technology means most problems that touch how a company runs are somewhere I have been before — and plenty of the best work started with an owner saying “this probably isn’t your thing, but…”
So call anyway. The worst case is that I tell you honestly it is not one for me, and point you to someone better placed.
And the bigger jobs? Multi-site rollouts, migrations and larger programmes are delivered with specialists I have worked alongside for years, under my direction and with me accountable to you throughout.
Recognise what is costing you?
Tell me what is breaking, roughly what it cost you last month, and who would approve a fix. That is enough for a straight answer on whether I can help.