Before we propose anything, we put numbers on it
A diagnostic answers a single question: where is the value in your business, what is it worth, and where do you start? No one can answer it honestly without looking at your operations, your systems and your numbers. Neither can we.
That's why, when the first conversation concludes there's something worth going after, the next step is neither a demo nor a quote: it's a fixed-price diagnostic, agreed before we start.
In short
| Duration | Two to four weeks, depending on the number of business lines and systems. |
| Price | Fixed, set before we start. Never by the hour. |
| By whom | Marc (operations and technology) and Pascale (finance and performance), together. One of the two leads, named from the start. |
| What you get | A document that puts a number on the current situation and ranks all your options in a recommended sequence. |
| What it doesn't do | It doesn't sell a project: it can conclude “don't change anything for now.” It is not a financial audit, a legal opinion, or a plan eligible for a grant. |
The document is yours. You can hand it to another provider: it is written for that.
What we examine
Five areas, in this order. Processes first: that's where money is made and lost, and the rest follows from them.
Your processes and operations
From quote to payment, from purchase to delivery, from production to service: who does what, in which tool, how often, with what control. What is fragile, redundant, manual, or depends on a single person.
What the situation costs today
Direct costs — entry and re-entry, errors, licences, consultants called back for every change — and opportunity costs: sales lost because a quote is late, decisions put off for lack of numbers, more expensive financing for lack of ready reports.
The state of your IT systems
Satisfaction and value for money, alternatives compared, resilience in case of outage or data loss, dependency on a vendor or on aging technology, security and Law 25 (Quebec) (gaps to raise, not a legal opinion), duplicated data and effort, automation opportunities and what blocks them.
Your numbers and performance
The questions management can't get a reliable answer to in time: margin by customer or product, 90-day cash flow, profitability by business line, month-end close. Where the numbers come from, and how many hands they pass through.
Alignment with your objectives
Growth, acquisition, sale of the business, succession, financing, better margins: do your tools take you there, or hold you back? A system that is enough today can slow down a sale or growth in three years.
Data quality is examined in detail only if a migration is among the options retained.
How we measure value
Each option is tied to an indicator you can measure yourselves, before and after. No “efficiency gains” without a number: if it can't be measured, we say so.
| For each option | Example |
|---|---|
| Indicator — what we measure | Hours per week checking supplier prices |
| Baseline — today, and where it comes from | 22 h/wk, logged over two weeks with the sales reps |
| Target — and what makes it possible | 5 h/wk, with prices updated automatically |
| Annual value — from a written formula | (22 − 5) h × 48 wk × $65/h = $53,000 |
| Confidence — measured, estimated or hypothesis | Measured |
| Verification — the report that will measure the result | Monthly report of quotes by sales rep |
The baseline comes first
It is taken before any work starts. Without a “before,” there is no “after,” only a discussion at the moment you want a result.
The numbers are yours
Set with you, one by one, validated by you, with the method to recalculate them without us.
The opportunity, as a range
A lost sale can't be measured to the penny: we give a range, and the ranking uses the low end.
How we prioritize
Invest
An option that pays: margin, sales, time given back, cash flow. Judged on its annual value, its cost and its payback period.
Protect yourself
A risk or cost you already carry: a key person leaving, a system going down, a forced renewal. Judged on what it would cost if it happened, and on how likely it is to happen.
The order follows five written rules, not intuition:
- 1Urgent protectionsa likely risk that would stop the business comes before any gain
- 2Quick winspayback in under six months, low risk, no dependencies
- 3Foundationswhat doesn't pay on its own, but unlocks the rest
- 4Heavier investmentspayback in six to twelve months
- 5What waitsbeyond twelve months, or too uncertain — with the condition that would move it up
“Do nothing” is always a costed option. And when the best first step isn't a migration but a single missing tool, the document says so.
What it looks like
A complete example, for a fictional company: Industries Nordelle, a 45-employee distributor and assembler. The situations come from real engagements; the names and figures are invented.
Conclusion. Nordelle should not start by changing CRM. It must first protect itself, then replace the Access application before the only person who knows it retires. The fastest gains are in quotes and order entry, and they depend on that replacement.
Value at stake: $222,000 per year once everything is in place, for $170,000 to $244,000, paid back in 9 to 13 months.
| Rank | Option | Family | Value over 12 months | Payback |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1–4 | Tested backup, Law 25 (Quebec) gaps, HubSpot monthly, document what Robert knows | Protect yourself | Avoids an outage costing up to $180,000 | Immediate |
| 5 | One system for sales, orders, inventory and accounting | Foundation | $15,000, plus what it unlocks | Through what it unlocks |
| 6 | Major customers' orders entered automatically | Invest | $59,000/yr | 4 to 5 months |
| 7 | Supplier prices up to date, quotes in one day | Invest | $108,000/yr | 4 to 6 months |
| 8 | Close in 5 days, margin by customer every month | Invest | $40,000/yr | 5 to 6 months |
What you receive
A document of about fifteen pages, presented in a meeting. The first page reads in ten minutes; the rest is detailed enough for another provider to carry it out.
- The executive summary: the conclusion, the value at stake, the first three steps.
- Your business today: the processes as they actually happen, the systems and what flows between them.
- What the situation costs: each cost, its baseline and the method to recalculate it.
- Your systems, area by area, and the alternatives compared.
- Your options: one sheet per option, invest or protect.
- The recommended sequence over 12 to 24 months, with its dependencies.
- What it takes from you: who, how many hours, which decisions, when.
- The appendices: the logs and calculations, so you can redo every figure without us.
How it unfolds
| When | What we do | Who on your side | Your time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kick-off | We confirm management's questions, the objectives and the list of people to meet | Management | 1 h 30 min |
| Week 1 | Interviews by function and observation of the actual work, in the systems as they are used | One person per function | 1 to 1.5 h each |
| Week 2 | Review of systems, figures and contracts; baseline measurements | Accounting, the person who knows the systems | 2 to 4 h in total |
| Week 2 | Costing workshop: every cost and every gain, validated line by line | Management and the relevant leads | 2 h |
| Week 3 | Writing, ranking, cross-checking between the two of us | — | — |
| Presentation | Presentation of the document and the recommended sequence; your questions | Management | 2 h |
In total: about one day of management time and a few hours per function. We ask for read access to systems and reports, under a confidentiality agreement.
Why it's paid
A free diagnostic is a quote in disguise: it is written to sell the project, not to tell you whether you should do it. Ours can end with “don't change anything for now” — and that is exactly why it's worth something.
After the diagnostic
The document stands on its own: it contains no proposal or implementation price from us. If you want us to carry out the plan:
A one-year plan, built together
Based on the recommended sequence, with you.
Fixed-price milestones
Each with measurable, unambiguous acceptance criteria: when the day comes, you know whether it was met or not.
The engagement, if and when we agree
Not before. Nothing commits you until then.
You can also give the plan to someone else, or carry it out yourselves: the document is written for that.
Is it for you?
Whatever the sector — manufacturing, distribution, services, B2B or B2C. What matters is a situation like one of these:
A risk you already carry
- Your vendor is forcing a migration, raising its prices or has just been acquired.
- Aging technology, or only one person who knows how to keep it running.
- No tested restore: an outage would stop orders.
Friction that costs you every week
- Hours spent extracting data and building reports by hand.
- Too many clicks for everyday work, too little automation.
- Sales reps checking prices and re-entering data instead of selling.
- You can't see clearly where your operations lose time and money.
An opportunity your current system blocks
- Sell online to your customers.
- Largely automated accounting, and reports always ready for the bank or for financing.
- Know the actual margin by customer, project or product, to decide faster with less risk.
- Processes specific to your core business, too particular for generic software.
Yes, if
- you recognize yourself in at least one of the situations above;
- someone on your side has the authority to decide;
- you want your tools to be truly yours afterwards — understood, mastered by your team — not a new vendor in place of the old one.
No, if
- after a thirty-minute conversation, there's no excitement on both sides about at least one concrete opportunity in your business;
- you'd rather fully delegate your IT — to an outside firm or a patchwork of SaaS products — than master it. That's a valid choice; it just isn't the one we serve;
- you're looking for an audit or plan that qualifies for a grant program (Investissement Québec's ESSOR, for example): that isn't what the diagnostic produces;
- you need to compare bids under a request for proposals with fixed specifications: the diagnostic doesn't compare to a bid — it comes before one.
We'll tell you on the first call.
It starts with a conversation
Thirty minutes, no presentation. We ask questions; at the end, you'll know whether there is enough value at stake to justify a diagnostic — or whether the situation calls for a quick intervention instead — and so will we. If not, we'll tell you who to call.
Book the conversation →