Advisory · Growth, turnaround or review

Margin Leakage & EBITDA Improvement

Connect product, customer and channel economics to the operational complexity that quietly consumes gross margin, cash and capacity.

Private · Confidential · Operator-led

Manufacturing performance and cost review materials

Overview

Revenue growth can conceal deteriorating economics when complexity rises faster than contribution. The work reconciles commercial margin with the operating effort required to produce, store and deliver it.

The outcome is a practical view of where value leaks, what should stop, what should be repriced and which operating changes can improve EBITDA without weakening the core business.

Stainless steel food processing machine with control panel

Who this is for

  • Businesses growing sales faster than EBITDA
  • Boards challenging weak cash conversion
  • Teams with unclear product and customer economics

What is reviewed

Review areas

  • Customer and SKU contribution
  • Yield, waste and giveaway
  • Changeover and short-run cost
  • Rebates, promotions and deductions
  • Freight, storage and cold-chain cost
  • Inventory and working capital

Deliverables

  • Margin-leakage map
  • Customer/SKU action matrix
  • Cost-to-serve challenge
  • EBITDA improvement priorities
  • Management measures and review cadence

Risks this work addresses

  • Blended margin hiding loss-making complexity
  • Growth crowding out higher-contribution output
  • Savings targets detached from operating causes
  • Working-capital cost excluded from decisions

Questions worth answering internally

If these cannot be answered with evidence, the decision is not yet ready.

  • Which growth creates cash?
  • Which SKUs consume disproportionate effort?
  • Where does invoice margin diverge from delivered margin?
  • What can be simplified without damaging the proposition?