Positioning Research
Fix the work that takes more effort than it should.
Some work in your business needs a person’s judgment. Some of it only takes as much effort as it does because of how the work, the handoffs, or the information around it is set up.
Does this sound familiar?
Recognizable examples:
It might not be what it looks like
Effort isn’t the same as value
Not all of this is a problem. A person weighing a tricky judgment call, building a real relationship with a customer, catching something a system never would - that’s work worth keeping exactly as it is.
The work worth a closer look is the kind that takes effort only because of how the workflow, ownership, systems, or information flow around it is put together - a step that’s manual because two tools don’t share information, or a check that happens by hand because nobody built a way to see it automatically. That kind of work doesn’t need a person’s judgment. It just needs a person, which is a more expensive way to get the same result.
Our approach
Find the constraint before choosing the fix
We don’t start with a preferred technology. Once the real constraint is clear, the right move is usually one of these, roughly in order of how much change it introduces:
Or build nothing, if that's the right answer. We determine what should change and implement it - not just recommend it.
How we see a business
We look at the business as a connected system
A business moves through a lifecycle: Grow (turning opportunity into a customer), Flow (getting the work done and paid for), and Keep (staying in the relationship after the job ends). A problem that shows up in one place often started somewhere else in that chain.
See how we think about thisExample scenario
Hypothetical, for illustration only - not a claimed result from a real client.
What is happening
A commercial service operator’s office staff spend roughly an hour a day manually cross-checking completed jobs against what’s been invoiced, because the field app and the invoicing software don’t share information.
What Ihsan would inspect
- Which specific steps are manual because of a missing connection between tools, not because they need a person’s judgment
- How often the manual check actually catches something versus just confirming everything is fine
- What it would take to connect the two systems that currently require the manual bridge
Possible interventions
- Connect the field app and invoicing software so completed work flows through without manual cross-checking
- Automate the specific comparison step, while keeping a person in the loop for genuine exceptions
- Simplify the process so fewer handoffs are required in the first place
What should improve
That hour a day goes back to the team, and the check that used to depend on someone remembering to do it happens on its own instead.
Bring the part of the business that’s stuck
Bring the task that takes more effort than it feels like it should. We start by understanding the work itself, not by pitching a fix.
Tell me what’s getting stuckOr see how Ihsan approaches it first.