Strategy that starts with a diagnosis
Every engagement opens with a rigorous review of the operating model and closes with a sequenced roadmap leadership can actually execute. Four to six weeks from kickoff to a costed set of priorities.
● When To Engage
The Situations that put this work on the calendar
Strategy work rarely starts from curiosity. It starts because something changed at the ownership level, at the leadership level, or in the numbers. These are the moments Cordatus is most often called into.
A new private equity owner
The deal closed and the value-creation plan has a clock on it. Leadership needs a defensible read on where the operating model will hold under the growth thesis and where it will not, early enough to act on it inside the hold period.
A post-acquisition integration
Two companies now share a P&L and almost nothing else. Processes conflict, systems overlap, and nobody owns the combined workflow end to end. The integration needs one operating model that both sides actually run on.
Portfolio company underperforming
Revenue is holding but margin is not, and the reporting does not explain the gap. The cost of serving each customer, product line, or entity has never been isolated, so every proposed fix comes down to whose opinion carries the room.
A new CFO in the seat
A finance leader inherits a back office built by people who have moved on. An independent assessment gives the first ninety days a factual baseline and gives the board something it can hold leadership to.
Diagnosis before deployment
Most operational partners answer a performance problem with a staffing proposal. The proposal arrives before anyone has established where value is actually leaking, which means the headcount is sized against a symptom instead of a cause. It reduces a line item and leaves the operating model exactly as it was.
Cordatus starts with a different approach. Before a single role is scoped or a single workflow is rebuilt, the operating model gets mapped, measured, and costed. Where the process breaks, what it costs to serve, which failures carry real risk, and which fixes return the most for the least effort. Leadership gets that picture before committing to anything.
The other failure mode is strategy that stops at the recommendation. A roadmap that no one can execute is a document, not a result. Cordatus builds the plan knowing it will be held to delivering it, through operations engineering, technology and automation, and managed execution when capacity is what stands in the way. The diagnosis and the build sit under one firm, which means the roadmap is written by people who will be accountable for it.
● Our Process
A predictable path from diagnosis to sustained performance.
Every Cordatus engagement runs the same stages regardless of capability or industry. Here is what each one produces when the work is strategy and advisory.
Discover & Define
Stakeholder interviews, process walkthroughs, systems review, and analysis of the data the business already generates. The output is a factual baseline of the current operating model, including the costs and constraints that never appear in the management reporting.
Strategy & Direction
The findings get turned into a sequenced roadmap with owners, dependencies, and measurable targets, supported by a business case that stands up to a board or an investment committee.
Build & Execute
Redesigned processes, the technology to automate them, and the teams to run them, delivered in the order the roadmap set. Strategy hands directly to the capability that owns the build.
Test & Refine
Performance tracked against the baseline established in stage one, with refinement built into scheduled review cycles so efficiencies grow over time.
● What You Get
What leadership actually walks away with
A strategy engagement produces working artifacts leadership can put to use. The specific set is scoped to the situation, and most engagements produce some version of the following.
The current state, measured
Cost-to-serve analysis. Activity-based costing that isolates what it actually costs to deliver each product, service line, entity, or customer segment.
Process maturity assessment. A graded read of each core process against a defined maturity scale, so improvement has a number attached to it.
Risk register and heat map. Operational, compliance, and continuity exposures ranked by likelihood and impact, with the single points of failure named.
The case for change
Business case and ROI model. The financial argument for each recommended initiative, built so it survives a board or investment committee review.
Automation opportunity list. Every candidate process for automation, ranked by implementation effort against expected impact, so sequencing follows the math.
The plan and how it gets run
Transformation roadmap. Sequenced initiatives with owners, dependencies, and timing, structured so work can start immediately on the first phase.
Governance model. Decision rights, escalation paths, and accountability by function, so the roadmap has somewhere to live once the engagement ends.
KPI scorecard design. The measures that track performance against the baseline, defined at the outset so the baseline and the targets use the same yardstick.
● Scope The Work
How this work gets scoped
Operational Assessment
The entry point for most engagements. A current-state audit across finance operations, back office, technology stack, and workforce structure, ending in a costed set of prioritized recommendations.
Business Transformation
End-to-end redesign of processes, operating model, and organizational structure. For leadership teams who already know the current state will not carry the next stage of growth.
Post-Merger Integration
Built for acquirers and their portfolio companies. Standardize processes across combined entities, consolidate the back office, and build one operating model out of two, with the automation that scale makes possible.
● Beyond The Roadmap
The roadmap and the team to navigate it
The most common reason transformation plans stall is that the firm which wrote the plan cannot build it. Every initiative on a Cordatus roadmap routes into a capability that delivers it.
Engaging Cordatus for strategy leaves a company free to deliver the roadmap however it chooses. Our clients own the roadmaps we build.
Operations & Process Engineering
Workflow redesign, process documentation, and the continuous improvement cadence that keeps the gains.
Technology & AI
The automation, integration, and data work that turns a redesigned process into a running one.
Managed Services
Dedicated teams across specialized practice areas when execution capacity is the constraint.
● Frequently Asked Questions
Questions leadership teams ask before they start
How long does an operational assessment take?
Four to six weeks from kickoff to final recommendations. The variable is access. Assessments move at the pace stakeholders make time for interviews and the pace finance and operations data becomes available.
Who actually does the work?
Engagements are led personally by Cordatus leadership. The person who runs the assessment is the person in the room from the first conversation and stays on it through the final recommendations. Senior US-based practitioners in business process and technology are brought in as the scope requires.
Do you execute the plan or just recommend it?
Both are available, and they are separate decisions. Cordatus can deliver the roadmap through operations engineering, technology implementation, and managed teams. It is also common for a client to take the roadmap and execute internally. The plan is written to be executable either way.
What does our team need to provide?
Access to the people who run the processes, the systems that support them, and the operational and financial data already being produced. The assessment works from the reporting a company already has, and access to those systems improves the outcome.
Is this only for private equity backed companies?
No. The work fits any mid-market company where growth, a transaction, or a leadership change has outpaced the operating model. PE-backed companies come up often because those conditions tend to arrive at once.
How is this different from a staffing or outsourcing engagement?
A staffing engagement begins with a headcount requirement. This begins with a question about where value is leaking. Sometimes the answer is a workflow redesign that closes the gap on its own, and sometimes it is outsourced or automated capacity, but only after the analysis shows which one is right.
Start with a clear read on the operating model
A strategy session surfaces where the operating model is under strain and what an assessment would cover for your business. It ends with a straight answer on whether the work is worth doing at all.