A Day in the Life of a Transformation Partner

“Something has to change. We can’t have this again.”

Adam was fifteen minutes late joining the call — continuing a pattern that had crept in over the past few months. I glanced at my notes and knew immediately they wouldn’t survive first contact with today’s conversation. Today wasn’t going to follow the agenda.

“This is the fourth time in a row we’ve lost a tender to our biggest competitor,” Adam began. “Everything was going according to plan — solid proposition, relationships in place, and they’d even used us for a smaller project before. That went really well.”

I could hear the frustration in his voice. Adam was exasperated, and understandably so. But I was also intrigued. Losing a tender is one thing — losing four, under similar circumstances, is something else.

“We can lose jobs for lots of reasons,” he continued, “cost, perception, relationships... But this time, we lost because of resource availability.”

The Reveal

I frowned. “But that must happen all the time when project timings don’t line up?”

“True,” he said, “but this time we had the resource available.”

That stopped me. Our work together over the past few months had been positive — focused on aligning Adam’s personal goals with his business ambitions. As the company’s founder and driving force, Adam had always been laser-focused on growth. We’d been working through our growth playbook: positioning the business as an expert in its field, developing a content-led marketing strategy, and refining the follow-up process to convert more leads.

But now, the conversation had taken a different turn.

“This deal was worth 20% of our quarterly revenue,” Adam said. “It absolutely can’t happen again. We’re losing business as fast as we’re winning it.”

Digging into the Data

After the call, I dove into the CRM. The data showed a worrying trend: a significant number of lost deals were tagged as “lack of available engineering resource.”

But how significant was it, really? And what was driving it?

I reached out to the Head of Engineering for a quick chat.

“We run a spreadsheet to show availability. Skills, workload, current projects — all there. But honestly, keeping it updated isn’t the highest priority when we’re delivering jobs. It’s usually refreshed weekly.”

“And when jobs are cancelled?” I asked.

“There’s always something to do — training, maintenance, certifications. So the engineers switch to that.”

“But what if there’s other paid work they could be doing?”

“…By the time we find out about cancellations, it’s too late.”

The Turning Point

Yes, the automated follow-up system would boost lead conversion — but the immediate priority was to optimise resource scheduling. Solving that bottleneck would not only prevent lost opportunities but also increase revenue capacity without expanding headcount.

Adam had been understandably focused on growth through marketing. But the data told a different story — one of untapped potential hidden inside his own operations.

A Way Forward

I drafted the meeting invite for next week:

Subject: A Way Forward

Hi Adam — I think I’ve found what’s really holding things back. Let’s talk next week — I believe we can solve this and hit your growth targets faster than planned.

And that’s what the Streamline Transformation Partnership is all about: not just delivering software, but uncovering the real levers of transformation — aligning technology, process, and people to achieve meaningful, measurable business change.