Findings

This War Map shows how we turn an operational review into an implementation plan. The company, people and figures are fictional. The dates show a possible sequence; the scope and schedule of a real engagement are agreed with you.

Findings

Where work gets held up, who has to step in, and what it costs in this example.

Approval queue

Carlos approves ~40 POs per week. Most are rubber-stamped because he lacks the context and time to review them properly.

Tribal knowledge risk

Monthly close, WMS exports, and escalation routing all depend on specific people. If they disappear, the company slows or stops.

Context fragmentation

Six systems produce six versions of reality. Teams spend mornings reconstructing what happened before they can decide what to do.

Leadership coordination load

The COO starts the day figuring out what happened overnight. The CEO carries routing, approvals, and exceptions that should be infrastructure.

Illustrative time allocation for 12 interview roles

Manual data work
31%
Meetings + coordination
24%
Strategic work
18%
Approvals + escalations
17%
Actual decisions
10%

These scenario percentages total 100%. They illustrate task categories for the 12 interview roles, without extrapolating them to all 180 employees.

55% of the team's time goes to manual data work and coordination. Another 17% goes to approvals and escalations. Only 28% remains for strategic work and decision-making.

Key Insight: Manual work and coordination total 55% in this scenario. Necessary checks, useful collaboration and avoidable rework must be separated before estimating recoverable capacity.

SOP vs. Reality

Order-to-CashSOP: 8 steps → The Reality: 14 steps, 3 handoffs
The SOP
Order received
Credit check
Inventory allocated
Pick and pack
Ship
Invoice generated
Payment received
Cash applied
8 steps, linear
The Reality
14
Steps
3
Handoffs
8-day invoicing delay
Cycle time
~120 orders/week
Volume

14-step flow with 3 manual exceptions and 2 Excel handoffs. Orders enter through HubSpot but must be manually transferred to SAP. Inventory checks require a WMS export to Excel. Average 8-day delay between order completion and invoice generation.

The Gap
Orders manually copied from HubSpot to SAP. No integration. Average 15 minutes per order, 120 orders/week.
Inventory availability checked via WMS CSV export to Excel. By the time the data is in Excel, stock may have changed.
Invoice generation delayed an average of 8 days after order completion. Scenario: €180K of annual invoice value collected later. This is a cash-timing exposure, not €180K of lost revenue.
Sophie sends 30+ manual status update emails per day to 3 departments. No automated notifications.
Payment mismatches investigated manually in Excel. No root cause tracking across incidents.
Inventory ReconciliationSOP: 4 steps → The Reality: 9 steps, 3 handoffs
The SOP
Pull WMS report
Pull SAP report
Compare and reconcile
Adjust discrepancies
4 steps, linear
The Reality
9
Steps
3
Handoffs
6-8 elapsed hours
Cycle time
Daily
Volume

The sample daily cycle spans 6-8 elapsed hours, including waiting, not 6-8 person-hours of effort. Marc exports a CSV every morning, compares manually in Excel, flags discrepancies, then adjusts both systems separately.

The Gap
WMS-to-SAP sync does not exist. Marc exports CSV daily using a script only he understands.
Discrepancies require physical count verification. One warehouse supervisor plus Marc, simultaneously, for 2-3 hours.
SAP and WMS adjusted separately after reconciliation. No guarantee both systems reflect the same correction.
Marc's export script lives on his laptop with no documentation or backup. Reconciliation stops when Marc is out.
ProcurementSOP: 5 steps → The Reality: 11 steps, 4 handoffs
The SOP
Request submitted
Vendor quote
PO created
PO approved
Goods received
5 steps, linear
The Reality
11
Steps
4
Handoffs
2.3-day CEO delay
Cycle time
~40 POs/week
Volume

Purchase requests arrive by email, get tracked in Tom's personal Excel, and route through SAP. Any PO over €5K requires CEO approval via email. Carlos approves ~40 per week with an average 2.3-day delay. Most are rubber-stamped.

The Gap
CEO reviews ~40 POs/week. Most under €10K. Admits he rubber-stamps most because he lacks time to review properly.
No visibility into budget vs. actual spend until month-end. Tom tracks in a personal Excel that no one else can access.
Goods receipt in WMS has no connection to SAP PO. Invoice matching is entirely manual.
Vendor quotes compared against budget in Excel. No historical pricing data accessible in any system.
Customer EscalationSOP: 3 steps → The Reality: 8 steps, 0 documented rules handoffs
The SOP
Complaint received
Routed to team
Resolved and closed
3 steps, linear
The Reality
8
Steps
0 documented rules
Handoffs
~45 min per escalation
Cycle time
25-30/week
Volume

Complaints arrive through HubSpot, email, and phone. Céline triages every single one from memory. Routing is based on her personal knowledge of who handles what. Follow-ups tracked in her personal spreadsheet. Resolution sometimes logged in HubSpot.

The Gap
Escalation routing depends entirely on Céline's memory. No rules, no decision tree, no system logic.
Each escalation takes about 45 minutes end to end, including necessary analysis. The register isolates 9 person-hours/week for context gathering within those cases.
Follow-up tracking lives in Céline's personal spreadsheet. When she is on leave, escalations stall or get lost.
Resolution logged in HubSpot inconsistently. No data on resolution time, root cause patterns, or repeat issues.
Weekly ReportingSOP: 2 steps → The Reality: 7 steps, 4 systems handoffs
The SOP
Collect data
Send report
2 steps, linear
The Reality
7
Steps
4 systems
Handoffs
4-5 hours
Cycle time
Weekly
Volume

The Monday ops report requires pulling data from HubSpot (sales), SAP (finance), WMS (inventory CSV), and HubSpot tickets (CS). All copied into an Excel template. Charts rebuilt manually every week. Report emailed to leadership Monday afternoon.

The Gap
4 separate data sources pulled manually every Monday morning. Each pull takes 20-40 minutes.
Excel template breaks regularly when data format changes. Last broken for 2 weeks before anyone noticed.
Report delivered Monday afternoon. By then, the week's decisions are already being made without data.
No historical trending. Each week's report is built from scratch. Previous weeks' data not automatically retained.
Key Insight: The five sample comparisons show 75%, 125%, 120%, 166.7% and 250% more steps, respectively: (actual ÷ documented − 1) × 100. Extra steps include necessary exceptions as well as avoidable work.

Work that needs attention

FinanceMonthly close: 22 person-hours/month for 400+ entries; 22 × 12 ÷ 52 = 5.1h/week5.1h
OperationsOrder status updates sent manually by Sophie to 3 teams via email14h
LogisticsDaily CSV handling: 11 person-hours/week; excludes stock checks11h
LogisticsStock-check subset: 12 person-hours/week; excludes CSV handling12h
Customer SuccessEscalation routing done by Céline from memory. No rules.9h
FinancePOs over €5K require CEO approval. Carlos signs ~40/week8h
OperationsMonday ops report assembled manually from 4 systems7h
AllNo single source of truth. Each team maintains their own versionongoing
66.1 person-hours/week across 7 quantified rows; 1 unquantified risk66.1 h
Key Insight: The sample register converts 22 hours of monthly close work to 5.1 hours/week. Other rows use person-hours/week. Reporting includes 4-5 hours of preparation plus 2-3 hours of collection and review. Rows are scoped to avoid double counting; time spent is not automatically recoverable.

Risk Register

Single Point of FailureCritical
Laura Girard, COO
Order-to-cash has no documented process. Laura carries it in her head. 14 years of institutional knowledge not captured anywhere.
Single Point of FailureCritical
David Ribeiro, Finance
The SAP-Excel reconciliation macro was built by David 6 years ago. No one else can run it. If he is out, the monthly close stops.
Single Point of FailureCritical
Marc Thierry, Warehouse
The daily WMS export depends on Marc's custom script, which has no documentation or backup.
Compliance GapHigh
No audit trail
Decisions made in Slack and email are not captured in any system. No traceability for quality or regulatory review.
Working-capital timingHigh
Late invoicing
Average 8-day delay between order completion and invoice generation. Scenario: €180K of annual invoice value collected later. This is a cash-timing exposure, not €180K of lost revenue.
Data IntegrityMedium
No master data governance
Same customer exists under different names across HubSpot and SAP. No deduplication.
Process GapHigh
No close status visibility
No consolidated view of month-end close progress. David checks status across SAP and Excel files manually. Issues surface only when deadlines are missed.
System FragmentationHigh
6 systems, 3 disconnected
SAP, WMS, HubSpot, Excel, Google Workspace, and Slack. Only HubSpot and Google Workspace are properly integrated. The rest depend on manual bridges.
Next Chapter
Implementation plan