One current view of the activity
Nobody has to assemble a picture before anyone can look at it.
Case study · Recruitment
A clearer view of the business,
and a stronger basis for decisions.
How a founder-led recruitment agency in London moved from tracking activity to deciding with it.
Fanny
At a glance
- The business
- A founder-led recruitment agency in London
- The challenge
- Activity recorded in several places, and unusable for deciding anything
- What changed
- The founder can see which parts of the market are worth the effort
- Live since
- September 2026
The situation
The question she
could not answer
She was not short of information. Activity was being recorded, across spreadsheets, email and notes. Everything that had happened was written down somewhere.
What she could not do was use it. Assembling an overall picture meant manual work every time anyone wanted one, so nobody wanted one often. And the question that mattered stayed open: where should the effort go next, and which parts of the market were worth persisting with?
In her own words, what was hard to settle before: prioritisation of focus, and time spent by sector set against revenue.
That is not an admin problem. It is a business problem wearing an admin costume, which is why more discipline would never have fixed it.
The work
What the work
actually was
The build took a few weeks. The part that decided the outcome took longer, and came first: understanding how the business really operates, what a complete record looks like, and which distinctions are worth capturing because a decision depends on them.
Everything after that was execution. Records brought together in one place, activity tracked the same way each time, and reporting designed backwards from the questions the founder wanted answered. The team received a written guide and a handover.
The tool matters far less than the mapping.
A system built on a fuzzy understanding of the business produces tidy data nobody can decide with.
The outcome
What the business has now
She can now see which parts of the market respond, set against what they are worth, and direct the effort accordingly.
In her own words, what she can consult now: which sectors have an appetite, set against the revenue, and therefore where to focus.
Patterns that were previously a matter of impression are now visible in a report. Some have already been confirmed.
Reporting built backwards from the questions
The reports answer what the founder actually wanted to know, rather than what happened to be easy to count.
Effort set against what it returns
Which parts of the market respond, and what they are worth, in the same view.
Patterns to check, not to assume
What used to rest on impression now has a report behind it.
Recording happens once
Keeping it current is part of doing the work, rather than a second job at the end of the week.
A written guide and a handover
The team runs it without me.
“I connect every day and look at the to do list that comes up. What really changes my life is no longer going through my emails to follow up, or my notes, or thinking, right, I must chase that one. No more notes scattered everywhere.”
Worth being clear about
What this was not
This was not a time saving project, and the founder was explicit about it. The tracking was daily work either way. What changed is not the hour, it is what the hour produces.
In her own words: it was daily work, so it is less a time saving and more a strategic step up.
Not every business is buying back its evenings. Some are buying a view of themselves. It is worth knowing which one you are before you spend anything.
“This will allow me to see the bigger picture and understand where to go next, using real data rather than guesstimates. I am looking forward to analysing the reports and making informed strategic decisions.”
This is an early account. Commercial impact has not been measured yet.
Your business
Sound familiar?
- Does answering a question about your own business mean piecing together spreadsheets, emails and updates?
- Do your reports tell you what was easy to count, rather than what you wanted to know?
- Are your priorities set by impression rather than by something you can check?
Your information may already contain the answer. What may be missing is a way to read it.
In practice
What was delivered
| Scope | How it was checked |
|---|---|
| Relationship records and follow-up tasks | Agreed fields and statuses, sample import checks and tests of the configured task rules. |
| Reports for the founder | Views built around the questions the founder wanted to answer, with feedback after delivery. |
| Documentation and handover | Written guidance and a review of workflow rules after go-live in September 2026. |
The outcome described is improved visibility and a basis for decisions. The founder’s feedback supports that account; measured time savings or commercial gains have not been established.
The process at a glance
From recorded activity to a usable picture.
Delivered work, summarised from the client account.
- BeforeActivity sat across spreadsheets, email and notes.
- The changeRecords, follow-up tasks and reports were brought into one working system.
- The resultThe founder can compare market activity with revenue in one view.
- What it enabledA clearer basis for deciding where to direct effort.
Your business
Could your own information
be working harder?
A short conversation about what you are trying to decide, and whether the information you already hold could answer it.
15 minutes · No charge
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