Operator playbooks and tools

What we changed

Independent dealer, South East. Turnover £2.8m, margin 8.2%.

• Installed 13-week cashflow sheet—found £42k trapped in aged stock and slow recon

• Set up weekly pricing cadence with 3-tier margin bands—stopped margin drift, recovered 1.1 points

• Cut recon cycle time by 3 days using SLA tracker and bottleneck audit

• Moved 18 aged units in 6 weeks using new pricing rules and aged stock exit framework

Garage network, Midlands. 4 sites, £1.6m turnover, 12% margin.

• Built dealer KPI scorecard across all sites—visibility revealed stock turn was 2 weeks slower than peer average

• Implemented buying rules by site and category—protected margin before purchase, cut waste stock by 31%

• Ran weekly stock meeting with recon SLA tracker—reduced aged stock by 42% in 8 weeks

• Freed £28k working capital without new funding

Export-capable dealer, London. £7.2m turnover, 9.1% margin, 35% export mix.

• Mapped export controls workflow—reduced payment disputes by 60%, cut admin time by 4 hours per week

• Set up buyer vetting and documentation checklist—eliminated one bad debt

• Installed pricing cadence for export vs domestic—margin separation revealed 2.3-point gap, now managed weekly

• Increased export volume by 18% in 12 weeks with same headcount

Bodyshop, North West. £890k turnover, 11.4% margin, high aged inventory.

• Cut recon bottleneck by 2 days using workflow audit and SLA tracker—freed capacity for 6 extra jobs per month

• Implemented aged stock exit rules—moved 12 long-tail units in 4 weeks

• Set up weekly KPI call with owner—margin visibility improved decision speed, reduced discounting

Multi-site independent, Scotland. £5.1m turnover, 7.8% margin, working capital stress.

• Installed 13-week cashflow visibility across 3 sites—found £67k seasonal cash gap, planned funding 8 weeks early

• Built margin controls by site and category—recovered 0.9 points in 6 weeks

• Set up weekly stock-turn meeting with buying rules—aged stock fell from 34 days to 21 days

• Freed £51k working capital through stock discipline and recon SLA tightening