Operational Audit for SMEs: What the Organizational Healthcheck 360 Delivers
A 2 to 3 week, fixed-price operational audit that maps how work actually flows through your company, scores each process for risk and impact, checks how well you are using your data, and hands you a tailored roadmap. Standalone product. No hourly billing. No scope creep mid-engagement. The deliverables are yours to keep, whether you continue with us or not.
By Petar Zivkovic, Founder | Principal Consultant · Published 24 April 2026
01
The problem
Why audit before you advise?
Most companies ask the consulting company a vague question, thinking they will get more value for their money. Consultants, in turn, cannot anchor themselves in vague questions, so they fall back on their best slide deck to create a wow effect. Companies do not know what to ask first; consultants do not know what to prioritize. We want to put an end to this practice.
The Organizational Healthcheck 360 puts us on the same page as the client. Before we suggest anything, we spend 2 to 3 weeks doing nothing but mapping. We map your current processes as they actually are, not as your org chart claims they are. We talk to the people who do the work. We trace what happens when a customer enquiry arrives, when an invoice goes out, when a new hire starts, when a key supplier is late. Every process is evaluated for its (in)efficiency. The Healthcheck is, in effect, evidence-gathering for an informed decision.
02
The deliverables
What the Healthcheck 360 actually delivers
It is an inward, operational audit of how work actually flows through the company. There is no guesswork. There are no sugarcoated statements. It produces evidence, not opinions about strategy or about specific suppliers, although those conversations sometimes follow naturally from the findings. Five deliverables, in this order:
01. A graphic representation of your "as is" processes
Not as they should be, not as they are written down somewhere, but as they actually run today. This map is often the first time the founder sees the full operational reality of the company in a single document.
We use a process-map format adapted from established consulting practice (a useful public reference is the Stratechi process maps library), tuned for SME-scale operations rather than corporate-scale ones. The point is not the visual style; it is that every step, every owner, and every handoff sits on one page.
02. Discrepancies and misalignments map
Building on the process map, we clearly highlight process discrepancies and inefficiencies. Where do steps duplicate? Where does information get re-keyed? Where do approvals stall? Where does work cross silos and lose momentum? Each finding is logged with a brief description and a location in the process map, so nothing floats free of context.
03. Risk vs. Impact Matrix
Not every inefficiency deserves the same attention. A tornado has a devastating impact, but how many tornadoes hit your area? The matrix plots each finding on two axes: how likely it is to cause a problem, and how big the problem is when it does. You cannot afford to leave anything in the high-impact, high-risk quadrant.
04. High-level data governance assessment
Where does your data live? Is the employee's notebook a relevant database? How many places hold the same customer record? Are the numbers in your CRM, your accounting system, and your spreadsheets actually the same? And if they show different values, who gets priority? Who do you trust most? This is the first cut at a Single Source of Truth diagnosis.
05. A tailored roadmap
Rather than guessing, or building on past experience, this roadmap is the product of an audit of your company's operational health. It is, therefore, completely tailor-made. The roadmap shows what issues need to be resolved immediately, what updates and upgrades should be implemented for better results, and what could be done further down the road.
03
Pricing
How the price is set
There is no hourly billing. There are no scope adjustments mid-engagement. The price you agree on at the start is the price you pay at the end. The only exception is if, after kickoff, we discover the company is genuinely much larger than initially described, in which case we re-quote in writing before continuing. That has yet to happen.
This matters more for small and medium-sized enterprises than for large corporations. A corporation has the budget to absorb a wrong consulting recommendation; small businesses (SMEs) do not. An audit-first model gives you the right to say, after three weeks, that you have learned what you needed and that no further engagement is required. The roadmap is yours to keep.
| Company size | Fixed fee |
|---|
| Up to 50 employees | EUR 3,500 |
| More than 50 employees | EUR 4,500 |
04
Engagement
What happens after the Healthcheck?
You can do nothing, or you can sign a monthly retainer with us with a clear project scope tailored to your company's needs.
The Healthcheck has standalone value, and there is no contractual obligation to continue. The roadmap is yours regardless. Our mission is to leave you better off than you were three weeks ago. You can take the deliverables and act on them yourself. We accept the risk that you will conclude this is more than enough to fix things with your own team, and that no further engagement is needed. Not many owners will openly admit this, but some are unwilling to make substantial changes. Afraid, conservative, or reluctant: it is all fine. The good news is that this exit option keeps your expenses modest.
You can engage us for the second phase, the Boutique Approach, in which we work alongside you to fix the prioritized findings, starting with the most critical. The price for that phase is set at the end of the Healthcheck, based on the findings. We will discuss the investment needed for this stage and find the most suitable model. In every case, absolute cost control and pricing transparency remain paramount (a separate blog post on pricing is coming soon). No hidden costs.
Questions readers ask about this
- How long does the Organizational Healthcheck 360 actually take?
- Two to three weeks of elapsed time. The active engagement involves a kickoff, a series of structured interviews with key process owners, a document review, and a closing presentation of the deliverables. We aim to keep the time burden on your team to roughly half a day per process.
- Do I have to commit to long-term consulting after the Healthcheck?
- No. The Healthcheck is a complete product on its own. The five deliverables are yours to use however you choose, including using them with another consultant or implementing the roadmap with internal staff.
- What information do I need to prepare in advance?
- Before kickoff, we will ask for a high-level org chart, a list of your core systems (CRM, accounting, communication, document storage), and a who is who in the company. We do not require you to prepare process documentation, but we will need every existing procedure that you have in place.
- Who does the actual work on a Healthcheck engagement?
- The principal consultant runs the audit personally, end-to-end. The deliverables go through an Advisory Board review before being presented to you, which provides a second pair of external eyes from a network of vetted senior professionals. There are no junior consultants billed against your engagement.
- Is the Healthcheck 360 only for European SMEs?
- The product is designed around the realities of European SMEs (regulatory landscape, typical tooling, scale of operations), but it is applicable to any small or medium-sized company that wants an operational audit before committing to a longer consulting engagement.
- What if I only want one of the deliverables?
- The five deliverables are sequential and build on each other. The roadmap, for example, makes no sense without the risk matrix, which makes no sense without the process map. The product is sold as a complete package.