The published sample, drawn from the anonymised proof set: sector, revenue band and headcount only. A live report is written by Cortex's engine from figures computed in code from the respondent's answers.
A 31 Person Marketing Agency
Agency, studio or consultancy · 26 to 50 people · 2M to 5M · 3 September 2026
Constrained means the business works and is growing, and cannot see itself. Every number you need exists. Reaching any one of them costs an hour, so decisions are made on a monthly rhythm in a business that moves weekly.
Inside this business the condition looks like this: information exists and cannot be reached, so it is reassembled by hand each time it is needed, and decisions wait for the assembly.
- Revenue capture38 · weight 25
- Operating visibility31 · weight 25
- Knowledge retention44 · weight 20
- Leadership load26 · weight 20
- Systems readiness68 · weight 10
176,525 EUR
a year, across 2 priced drains
62,158 EUR
the share systems can carry, basis shown per drain
26.75
summed per drain at that drain's own rate
6 further drains were named and could not be priced. They are listed on page three and are excluded from every total.
Each component is scored from your answers alone. The weights are fixed across every audit, so the same answers always produce the same score. No benchmark data or industry average is used at any point.
Two Answers, One Hundred And Seventy Six Thousand.
Only two of your answers carried hours, so only two are priced. The arithmetic is shown in full. Where we assumed a figure you did not give, it is labelled, and substituting your own will move the total. The largest is leadership time in internal meetings.
Leadership time in internal meetings
| Your answer | 10 to 15 hours a week |
|---|---|
| Hours taken for the arithmetic | 12.5 a week, the midpoint of the band |
| Leadership group | 5 people, assumed from your headcount |
| Loaded rate | 55 EUR an hour at leadership, assumed |
| Working weeks | 46 |
| Annual cost | 158,125 EUR |
Preparing reports and summaries
| Your answer | 5 to 15 hours a week |
|---|---|
| Hours taken for the arithmetic | 10 a week, the midpoint of the band |
| Loaded rate | 40 EUR an hour at mixed seniority, assumed |
| Working weeks | 46 |
| Annual cost | 18,400 EUR |
The recoverable share
| Drain | Annual cost | Recoverable | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Leadership time in internal meetings | 158,125 EUR | 30% · 47,438 EUR | The share spent reporting status and reading numbers aloud, which a live operating picture and an automatic decision record remove. Deliberation stays. |
| Preparing reports and summaries | 18,400 EUR | 80% · 14,720 EUR | Assembly is automatable. The commentary on top of it is not. |
| Total | 176,525 EUR | 62,158 EUR | 26.75 hours a week returned |
A business still needs to meet. Recovery is the portion that exists only to establish what already happened. At those rates that is 26.75 hours a week returned, most of it to the five most expensive people in the business, recovered without hiring anyone.
The Figure Above Is A Floor.
Priced
- Leadership time in internal meetings 158,125 EUR
- Preparing reports and summaries 18,400 EUR
Named, and not priced
- Bringing new customers into service no hour count known
- Answering questions already answered no hour count known
- Chasing money already earned no hour count known
- Preparing quotes and proposals no hour count known
- Chasing follow ups named as a drain, no hour question asked
- Finding information across tools named as a drain, no hour question asked
Eight things were named as the most expensive uses of time in this business. Two of them had hours attached; six did not, and are therefore excluded from the total. That inability is itself the finding. A business that cannot price six of its eight largest drains has been prioritising by instinct, and each of those six is likely to be larger than it appears, precisely because nobody has ever counted it. Putting hours against them is the first thing a diagnostic does.
5 answers, in your own words
- How fast is a new enquiry answered?
- Next day or later
- Do you know what share of interest converts?
- Roughly
- How do you know whether the month is on track?
- A report somebody prepares weekly
- How consistent is follow up?
- It depends who owns it
- How long would it take to get a specific number?
- Within the hour
These are five statements of one condition. Information exists in the business and cannot be reached, so it is reassembled by hand each time it is needed. Judgment exists in individual people and is not held anywhere, so quality varies by who happens to own the account.
Where each score came from
| Component | Score | Drawn from |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue capture | 38 | Leads answered next day or later, follow-up dependent on the salesperson, close rates known only roughly. Lifted by five working acquisition channels and one customer records system everyone uses. |
| Operating visibility | 31 | An hour to retrieve a specific number, targets tracked by a prepared weekly or monthly report, client information split across inboxes, a messaging app and the records system. |
| Knowledge retention | 44 | Processes partially documented, some loss when a senior person leaves, senior time spent answering repeated internal questions and training staff. |
| Leadership load | 26 | Ten to fifteen hours a week of internal meetings per leader, five to fifteen hours a week producing reports. The lowest component in the set. |
| Systems readiness | 68 | A named owner for new systems in the operations director, decisions already made from data as well as experience, four to seven tools rather than twenty, one office. The strongest signal in your answers. |
One System Removes Both Priced Drains.
A company brain, then an operating picture on top of it.
Your two priced drains have the same root. Numbers live in four to seven places, so producing any view of the business is manual, and once it is manual it happens monthly and gets discussed in a meeting. The first build is a permissioned index across the records system, the inboxes, the messaging app and the finance system, and one live view built on it. The hour it takes to retrieve a number becomes seconds, the weekly report assembles itself, and the meeting that exists to read numbers aloud stops being necessary.
Payback, against the three build sizes
| Tier | Payback | Position |
|---|---|---|
| Single System | 2.9 months | within twelve months |
| Core Systems | 7.05 months | recommended |
| Operating Layer | 17.38 months | modelled, not proposed: payback runs past twelve months |
Computed on the recoverable figure against the midpoint of each tier's range.
What we would not propose yet
Client churn is the bottleneck named first, and it is almost certainly the largest number in this business. Nothing in this audit prices it, because retention data was not asked for. It is the first thing a diagnostic would go after, and it would be irresponsible to scope a system against it from a form.
What a diagnostic adds
Hours against the six unpriced drains. A retention number for churn. Interviews with the people who carry the work rather than the person who runs it. A scored sequence with a price against each item. Three weeks, and it is credited in full against any build.
How this score was produced
Five components with fixed weights, scored from your answers alone. Drains priced from your hours at loaded employment cost, never a billing rate. Drains without an hour count excluded from every total and named instead. What we still assumed:
- A working year of 46 weeks.
- A leadership group of 5, from the stated headcount.
- A loaded leadership hour of 55 EUR, employment cost rather than a billing rate.
- A loaded mixed seniority hour of 40 EUR.
If the diagnostic finds less recoverable value than it costs, the fee is refunded. The roadmap is yours and can be used with any builder.
If this is useful, the next step is thirty minutes on what these numbers mean for your business specifically. If it is not, nothing happens. No sequence, no follow-up chain.
The report an audit produces, published as the example. Cortex. Organisational intelligence. Operated by Cason Consulting MB.