Step 1 · Evidence
A service line that looks fine from the P&L.
An anonymised composite, with the numbers simplified for clarity. A service line produces $4 million in revenue. Total profit looks acceptable. But four independent lenses corroborate the same problem:
Contribution margin on the line has fallen from 34% to 27% over two years while revenue held at $4m.
Delivery rework runs at roughly 9% of direct hours, concentrated in two service variants.
Discounting is inconsistent: effective price varies up to 18% for near-identical work, depending on who quotes it.
Leadership scored pricing discipline 7/10. The evidence scored it 3/10. The perception gap became the working session.
Each observation is logged in the register with its source and magnitude. Four lenses pointing at one cause is what separates a finding from an anecdote.
Step 2 · Opportunity
The pool is sized before anything is promised.
Consolidated, the evidence forms one opportunity pool: pricing discipline plus rework reduction on this line is worth up to $900,000 a year if fully captured. That is the gross number, and it is never the number we commit to. It competes against every other pool on value, confidence, cost, complexity, capacity and risk. This one ranks first: high value, strong evidence, fully within the team's control.
Step 3 · The value case
The honest arithmetic.
The plan commits to $356,000, not $900,000. The difference is not pessimism. It is the reason the number can be defended in twelve months.
Step 4 · Execution
One initiative. One owner. One number.
- Owner
- General Manager, Services
- KPI
- Contribution margin on the line, monthly
- Work packages
- Pricing floor and approval rules; rework root-cause fix in the two variants; quote templates
- Milestones
- Pricing rules live by week 6; rework below 5% by month 4
- Dependencies
- Quoting system change; one senior hire in QA
- Review cadence
- Team weekly. Monthly Value Review with APG against actuals
Step 5 · Actuals
The month the forecast was wrong.
Month three: contribution margin has lifted, but only two-thirds of the expected impact has landed in the ledger. The Monthly Value Review does not average it away. The cause is isolated (one variant's rework fix is behind schedule), the capture assumption for that work package is revised down, the milestone is reset, and the committed value for the initiative is restated.
That is the loop closing. The forecast changed because reality did, and everyone can see why. When actuals run ahead of the hypothesis, the same discipline applies in the other direction.
Value is realised or the plan changes. It is never just asserted.
Every step of this example (the register, the ranking, the value case, the bridge, the monthly reconciliation) runs inside the APG Platform. The evidence that starts it comes from a Commercial Assessment.
If performance is below potential, the first step is knowing precisely why.
A Commercial Assessment takes two to four weeks. Fixed fee. At the end, you have a clear picture of what is constraining performance, where the opportunity is, and what should happen first.
Start with a Commercial Assessment →Not ready to talk? Find your constraint in 60 seconds →