Operational Recovery & Stabilisation

When the wheels are coming off, you don't need powerpoint. You need a highly experience and steady operator.

Service levels collapsing. Cash burning faster than plan. A peak season, acquisition, or system change that's destabilised the operation. Lenders, investors or the board asking questions the leadership team cannot answer with confidence.

You don't have six months for a traditional consulting engagement. You need rapid diagnosis, decisive corrective action, and a credible path back to stability in weeks, not quarters.

At De Clifton, our Operational Recovery & Stabilisation service is built to do just that, with twenty years leading operations on the front line, across parcel and courier networks, healthcare logistics, automotive supply chains, and military aviation. We've stabilised operations under conditions most advisors will never see.

That's what this service does.

The engagement runs in two integrated phases. A Diagnostic Sprint* of one to two weeks, including; site walkthroughs, data interrogation, structured interviews, and a clear separation of root causes from symptoms. This is delivered as a written findings report with a quantified 30/60/90-day recovery plan.

Then Corrective Action & Stabilisation* over four to eight weeks: hands-on execution of the highest-impact fixes alongside your team, and PMO set up of the 30/60/90-day recovery plan.

You exit the engagement with a stabilised operation, a defensible performance baseline you can take to your board or investors, material reduction in cost or cash burn, restored service performance against SLA, and a forward plan your team can execute without ongoing consultant dependency.

*Diagnostic Sprint from £5,000 fixed fee. Corrective Action & Stabilisation from £40,000.

Case Study: VC-BackedTechnology Sector Turnaround

Stabilising a venture-backed delivery business burning cash at an unsustainable rate

A venture-backed delivery technology business was approaching a critical inflection point. Cash burn was running at an unsustainable rate against runway. Third-party logistics contracts were underperforming with no clear accountability for fixing them. The organisation had grown faster than its operating model, leaving fragmented commercial ownership and weak operational visibility at leadership level. Network performance and customer service metrics were drifting in the wrong direction. The board needed a credible stabilisation plan, fast.

The intervention

Engaged to lead the operational turnaround, working directly with the executive team and embedded alongside operational leadership for the duration of the programme.

The work focused on four parallel tracks: a hard reset on cost and cash burn through 3P contract exits and workforce rationalisation; redesign of the organisation around clear accountability; restoration of operational performance through new carrier partnerships and SLA frameworks; and installation of a leadership operating rhythm that gave the executive team genuine line of sight on the recovery.

The results

  • Cash burn reduced by 80% through underperforming 3P contract exits, closure of loss-making markets, hiring freeze, and workforce rationalisation aligned to a revised operating model

  • Network delivery performance improved by 9 percentage points within the engagement window

  • Call centre handling improved by 16 percentage points

  • New carrier partnerships launched with UPS and APC, including defined delivery SLAs and performance frameworks

  • Organisation redesigned into three accountable pillars — Growth, Performance, and Account Management — removing duplicated effort and clarifying ownership

  • Weekly Business Review cadence introduced, aligning commercial, operational and finance leadership around a single source of truth and restoring board confidence in the numbers

The outcome

The business exited the intervention with a stabilised cost base, restored service metrics, and a leadership operating rhythm capable of running the recovery forward without ongoing external support.