Services

Operations consulting for companies whose growth has outrun how the work gets done

Wills Business provides operations consulting to mid-sized companies in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The pattern is familiar. Revenue doubled, headcount doubled, and the processes that worked at half the size now produce late orders, stock in the wrong place, costs nobody owns and reports nobody trusts. We map how the work actually moves, find where money and time are lost, and redesign the process with the people who run it. The engagement ends with a cost base you can defend and a set of KPIs the management team reviews every month.

Thirty minutes. No deck. A senior consultant replies.

Who calls us about operations

Owners whose margins are slipping while revenue grows. Sales are up in Cairo, Riyadh or Dubai and profit is flat. Nobody can say which products, customers or branches make money, so cost cutting happens by instinct.

Executives running a business that no longer scales. Orders queue behind two people. Purchasing, production and delivery each have their own spreadsheet. Every month-end is a reconciliation exercise. You need business process improvement that changes how the company runs, not a manual nobody reads.

Groups with a supply chain that has become the constraint. Stock-outs in one warehouse and dead stock in another, import lead times that make forecasting a guess, suppliers chosen by habit. You need supply chain consulting that starts from your demand pattern and your ports, not a textbook.

What you get

Deliverables depend on the scope and are named in it. An operations engagement typically includes:

Process maps of how the work actually runs today, built from observation and interviews across sales, purchasing, production or service delivery, warehousing and finance, with cycle times and hand-offs measured, not estimated.
A loss and bottleneck diagnosis showing where time, cash and margin leak: rework, waiting, excess stock, manual re-entry, unpriced services, approval queues.
Redesigned processes, agreed with the people who own them, with clear roles, decision rights, control points and the documents or system changes each step needs.
A cost management plan that separates the cost customers pay for from the cost they do not, sets targets by cost line, names an owner for each, and sequences the actions so cash improves early.
Supply chain recommendations where relevant: demand forecasting method, stock policy by item class, reorder rules, supplier consolidation, and the import and logistics choices that fit Egyptian and Gulf lead times.
A performance management framework: a short set of KPIs with definitions, targets, data sources and owners, a monthly review format, and a one-page dashboard the CEO can read in five minutes.
An implementation roadmap with quick wins in the first weeks, structural changes over the following months, and the point at which the management team runs it without us.

Deliverables are produced in English, Arabic or both, and presented to the leadership team by the consultant who did the work.

How the work runs

Scoping (week 1). We agree which parts of the operation are in scope, which are not, what result you want, who from your side takes part, and the fee. You receive a written scope.
Diagnosis (weeks 2 to 5). Site visits, interviews, process walks and data pulls. We measure before we recommend. You see the diagnosis before anything is designed.
Redesign (weeks 5 to 9). Processes, cost plan, stock policy and KPIs redesigned in working sessions with your managers, so the answer is theirs as much as ours.
Handover (weeks 9 to 12). Roadmap agreed, quick wins started, KPI review run for the first time with your team in the room.
Follow-up (optional). A monthly check on the KPIs for a period after handover, scoped separately.

What goes wrong without it

Cost cutting by instinct. The owner cuts the visible cost, usually people or marketing, and leaves the process that creates the cost in place. Six months later the cost is back and the people are gone.
Buying a system to fix a process. An ERP is bought to solve a problem nobody has defined. The broken process is now automated and harder to change.
Operational excellence as a slogan. Posters, a training course and a committee. Nothing in how orders move changes, because nobody measured how they move.
KPIs nobody owns. Forty metrics in a monthly pack, none with a target, an owner or a decision attached. The pack is read by the person who prepares it.
Stock as a symptom. Stock-outs and dead stock treated as a warehouse problem when the cause is forecasting, purchasing terms or a pricing decision made three months earlier.

People and organization when the process fix requires a change in structure, roles or decision rights.
Digital transformation when the redesigned process needs a system, and the system needs choosing.
Financial advisory when cost pressure has become a balance sheet problem.
Consulting in Saudi Arabia for operations work in Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam.

Frequently asked questions

What does operations consulting include? Process mapping and redesign, cost management, supply chain and inventory, and performance management through KPIs. It covers how work, cash and stock move through the company. It does not cover strategy, meaning where to compete, which is a separate service, although the two are often scoped together.

What is business process improvement, in practice? Taking one process end to end, an order to cash, a purchase to payment, a customer complaint to resolution, measuring how long it takes and where it stalls, and redesigning it so it runs with fewer steps, fewer hand-offs and a clear owner. Then measuring it again.

How is this different from business process consulting or an operational excellence programme? The labels differ more than the work does. What matters is whether the firm measures before it recommends, designs with your managers rather than for them, and leaves you with KPIs and owners rather than a report. That is how we run every engagement, whatever it is called.

Do you do supply chain consulting for importers and manufacturers in the Gulf? Yes. Demand forecasting, stock policy, supplier selection and logistics choices for companies importing into Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and for manufacturers supplying the region. The work starts from your actual lead times and customs experience.

How much does operations consulting cost? Fixed fee per scope, quoted in writing after the scoping call. The fee depends on the number of sites, functions and countries in scope and on how much data your systems can already provide.

Will you implement the changes or just recommend them? We design the changes with your managers, start the quick wins with them, and run the first KPI review in the room. Your team runs it from there. We do not supply interim managers or implement software.

Tell us where the operation is hurting

Thirty minutes on a call. Describe the symptom, late orders, slipping margins, stock in the wrong place, and we will tell you what a diagnosis would involve, how long it would take and what it would cost.