Belgian Management Consulting Firm
Regional consulting practice cut project delivery time by 40% and reduced coordination overhead by 60%, generating $88K in annual savings while enabling growth without adding headcount.
Organization Profile
A boutique management consulting firm based in Brussels with 15-20 consultants delivering strategy, operations, and transformation projects. The firm was profitable but constrained—projects consistently ran over timeline, consultants were overbooked, and client satisfaction was declining despite quality work.
The problem wasn't the work quality or the team capacity. The problem was coordination overhead consuming billable time.
The Hidden Coordination Tax
Where Coordination Overhead Was Hidden
- Daily Status Meetings: 12 hours/week in project standups, client syncs, and delivery reviews
- Resource Allocation: 8 hours/week manually assigning consultants across overlapping projects
- Cross-Project Coordination: 6 hours/week managing dependencies and shared resources
- Approval Delays: 4 hours/week waiting for engagement manager sign-offs on changes
- Manual Reporting: Consultants preparing status updates instead of working on client deliverables
- Scheduling Chaos: Same consultant needed on 2-3 projects simultaneously (context switching)
The Real Cost
At $150/hour blended consultant rates, 30 hours/week of coordination = $4,500/week = $234,000 annually.
As percentage of firm revenue ($2.1M), coordination overhead was consuming 11.1% of revenue. But worse—consultants were spending 30% of their time on coordination, not client work. That meant billable utilization was suffering and projects ran late because people were pulled between meetings.
Engagement Phases
Key Outcomes
Quantifiable Results
- 60% reduction in coordination: From 30 to 12 hours/week
- $88,200 annual savings: 18 hours/week × $150/hour × 50 weeks
- 40% faster project delivery: Projects now on timeline instead of 10-15% over
- +13 billable hours/week per consultant: Recovered from coordination time
- 5 recurring meetings eliminated with no loss of visibility
Business Outcomes
- Could take 2-3 more projects without hiring additional coordinators
- Project margins improved (less overhead per project)
- Consultant retention improved (less busywork, more real work)
- Client satisfaction scores up 35%
- Revenue growth opportunity: 13 additional billable hours/week × 15 consultants × $150/hour × 50 weeks = $146K additional annual revenue potential
- Able to scale to 25 consultants without proportional coordination increase
Client Perspective
"We grew too fast and coordination became our constraint, not capacity. We thought we'd have to hire someone to manage projects better. Turns out we needed to design our process differently. In 2 weeks we fixed what would have taken months of hiring and training to band-aid."
— Managing Partner
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