Case Story: The Cost of Inaction – The Missed €600 Million Answer
The Challenge
Sometimes, the most significant risk isn’t in the unknown but in the truth you choose not to see. A global, well-known, family-owned European organisation, a custodian of a significant legacy, found itself in a precarious position. For years, its revenue had stagnated, moving sideways with no signs of growth, placing increasing pressure on cash flow and limiting future investment. The leadership, comfortable in their long-held traditions and loyal customer base, perceived the problem but couldn’t understand its root cause, remaining firmly under the glow of their familiar streetlight.
The Investigation Beyond the Streetlight
We understood that their “comfortable normal” was actually an unhealthy baseline, silently eroding their potential. To diagnose the underlying reasons for this stagnation and identify tangible pathways to reignite value creation, we deployed the Organisational CT Scan. We meticulously calculated their Asset Efficiency Score (AES), examining the intricate connections between their operations, market position, and the nuanced reality experienced by their customers. Our objective was to illuminate the hidden inefficiencies and customer disconnects that were actively breaking their growth engine.
The Revelation: The Unseen Potential
The Organisational CT Scan produced a revelation that was both clear and profound. We uncovered three surprising core areas of hidden operational inefficiencies, significant customer disconnects, and, thereby, missing revenue. These were not minor issues; they were fundamental brakes on the company’s growth engine. The diagnostic not only identified these problems but also quantified that addressing these specific, verifiable issues could result in a revenue transformation of approximately €600 million. The path forward, illuminated by objective data, was laid out with precise clarity.
The Cost of Inaction
The proposed solution and the sheer scale of the uncovered potential were unfortunately deemed “too incredible to be believed” by the leadership. Grounded in their own comfortable streetlight – their long-held beliefs about how their business worked – they chose not to implement the recommendations. They opted for inaction, still searching for their keys under the familiar lamppost rather than venturing into the newly illuminated truth.
The Verifiable Impact
Four years later, the consequences of those decisions became starkly public. The business, unable to resolve its growth and cash flow issues, was forced to sell nearly 40% of its private family holdings via a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) to raise capital. Much of the proceeds did not directly benefit its core financials as hoped, and a significant portion of its legacy was diluted as a result. Had the earlier diagnosed unrealised potential been captured, it could have prevented this family ownership dilution entirely and added billions in sustained revenue over those same four years.
This case powerfully illustrates a key Maxim of the Maze: Your Comfortable Normal Might Be an Unseen Anchor; Quantify Its Real Cost.
Sometimes, the most costly decision is not acting on verifiable truth because it seems too unbelievable to fit your current worldview. By daring to look where others don’t, we illuminate not only pathways to immense value creation but also the profound financial consequences of strategic inaction.
