One case.
Three ways to move it forward.

The Board should endorse the service and profitability transformation and the hybrid Transformation Office, subject to a conditional AED 18.00 million envelope. The requested initial release is AED 3.50 million for Q1 mobilisation. The remaining AED 14.50 million remains reserved for evidence-based gates. The proposal is for the fictional Board meeting on 18 December 2026; it records no signed approval.

Acme's operating problem crosses functional boundaries. Contract repricing needs dependable cost and billing data. Scheduling gains depend on common job definitions and trained supervisors. Workforce savings depend on demonstrated service capacity. A hybrid office can coordinate these links while leaving delivery and benefits with the line executives who control them.

The principal condition is cash sufficiency. The programme-only calculation leaves just AED 0.65 million above the policy floor under the unrealistic assumption of zero ordinary business cash movement. The CFO must establish a rolling 13-week forecast covering collections, payroll, debt service, maintenance capex and tax. The Board should treat that missing forecast as a funding condition, not a footnote to an otherwise unconditional approval.

The recommendation is conditional because attractive annual economics do not remove execution risk. The downside requires AED 20.70 million of investment and cannot be authorised through the proposed base envelope. The Board retains that decision and any material scope change.

Source: SRC04: Options and recommended approach, section 7; SRC06: Investment and cash, section 9; SRC14: Assumptions and gaps, section 19. All case evidence is fictional.

Acme serves 260 business customers through 420 contracts, eight hubs and 1,200 employees. Growth after two acquisitions has left separate service desks, inconsistent job codes and local purchasing. The organisation has retained revenue without developing a common view of cost to serve.

Revenue rises from 204.00 in 2024 to a 240.00 FY2026 forecast, while underlying EBITDA falls from 20.00 to 10.00. Gross profit stays at 62.00, and recurring overhead grows from 42.00 to 52.00. Revenue growth alone therefore does not repair the business. Contract contribution and overhead need distinct interventions.

Twenty-six contracts produce revenue of 36.00 against direct cost of 39.40. Their 3.40 contribution loss precedes corporate overhead. The proposed exits cover only eight of those contracts; remaining losses still need repair. Allocated corporate overhead is not automatically avoidable when a contract closes.

Service continuity is commercially material. The top ten customers represent 38% of forecast revenue and 72.00 of contracts renew in 2027. Current SLA attainment is 84%, first-time resolution 71% and utilisation 62% under the canonical paid-hours definition. Standardisation must protect scarce maintenance skills and contract-specific commitments.

Source: SRC01: Financial baseline and proposed plan, section 4; SRC02: Service lines and operating footprint, section 5; SRC03: Diagnosis and evidence extracts, section 6. All case evidence is fictional.

Status quo with stronger reporting has low disruption but leaves conflicting authority unresolved. Centralised delivery strengthens enterprise control but risks bottlenecks and weak local accountability. Federated delivery retains responsiveness while making dependency coordination and benefit overlap harder. Hybrid delivery separates enterprise standards and assurance from line execution.

The illustrative weights are execution speed 20%, business ownership 20%, benefit control 25%, service continuity 20% and feasibility 15%. Scores are management judgements on a 1–5 scale. Hybrid scores 3.85, followed by federated at 3.50. These scores structure the discussion; they are not measured benchmarks or fully costed business cases for all four options.

The recommendation is sensitive to ownership preference. Reducing benefit control to 15% and raising ownership to 30% brings federated to 3.80 against hybrid at 3.85. At 10% benefit control and 35% ownership, federated reaches 3.95 and exceeds hybrid. The Board should record why enterprise assurance is worth the additional coordination effort.

Reconsider the model if leaders will not release capacity, Finance cannot establish a usable baseline or the diagnostic shows materially fewer cross-functional dependencies. An office chart cannot compensate for any of those failures.

Source: SRC04: Options and recommended approach, section 7. All case evidence is fictional.

The exit bridge is 10.00 baseline underlying EBITDA plus 29.00 gross annual benefit less 3.00 recurring enablement cost, giving 36.00. Revenue at exit is 250.80: baseline 240.00 plus repricing 4.80 plus cross-sell revenue 12.00 less exited revenue 6.00. Cross-sell contributes 4.20 of profit, not its full revenue.

FY2028 underlying EBITDA is 31.00 because initiatives do not operate at full effect throughout the year. Reported EBITDA is 28.00 after 3.00 of one-off programme expense. FY2028 net profit is 13.95. The 36.00 exit figure is an annual run rate, not that year's reported result.

Every benefit has a principal owner and an overlap boundary. Redeploying 20 roles books no saving. B04 requires removal of paid cost after service conditions pass. The separate 12.00 working-capital release changes cash and never increases EBITDA. The model's 10% tax convention is illustrative and makes no statutory claim.

Source: SRC01: Financial baseline and proposed plan, section 4; SRC05: Benefits and profit bridge, section 8. All case evidence is fictional.

The envelope comprises 12.00 expense and 6.00 capital expenditure. Q1 is intentionally cash-consuming: gross benefit 0.90 less recurring cost 0.15 less investment 3.50 equals negative 2.75. The initial release cannot be justified by claiming that the full 29.00 annual benefit arrives during mobilisation.

Over two years, 36.00 gross benefit less 4.50 recurring cost less 18.00 investment produces 13.50 programme cash before working capital. The 12.00 one-time balance release raises this to 25.50. Programme expense is already within investment cash and must not be deducted twice.

Quarter-level cumulative payback occurs in Q1 2028 before working capital and Q4 2027 after it. Peak cumulative draw is 4.35 before working capital and 3.35 after it. Starting cash of 12.00 less 3.35 gives only an illustrative 8.65; ordinary business flows are absent. No total-liquidity conclusion, exact payback date or debt repayment schedule follows from this exhibit.

Source: SRC06: Investment and cash, section 9. All case evidence is fictional.

Downside capture is 65% of base benefits, with recurring annual cost of 3.30 and a 15% investment overrun. The result improves exit profit, but two-year cash before working capital is negative 2.25. The 2.70 excess above the 18.00 envelope requires a fresh Board decision or a scope reduction. Cash release is not a substitute for that authority.

Upside capture is 110%, with annual recurring cost 3.15. The result is an assumption test, not a probability-weighted forecast. The model applies the same capture factor to benefit phasing and preserves a half-year recurring cost ramp in 2027.

Each percentage point of repricing on the 60.00 pool changes annual EBITDA by 0.60. Ten fewer cross-sell wins reduce revenue by 4.00 and contribution by 1.40. Retaining ten funded positions reduces the proposed saving by 1.20. These isolated sensitivities must not be stacked on a downside that already captures them.

No NPV or IRR is supplied. A full valuation would require approved assumptions for horizon, discount rate, taxes, residual value and cash timing. A ratio of exit EBITDA improvement to investment would answer a different question.

Source: SRC07: Scenarios and sensitivities, section 10; SRC14: Assumptions and gaps, section 19. All case evidence is fictional.

The CEO sponsors a ten-FTE office with eight internal secondments and two temporary external specialists. A further 24 FTE of line capacity is required. All 32 internal FTE releases remain proposed. Protected programme roles and essential specialists are excluded from the 50-position reduction plan.

The first quarter establishes one data foundation and two operating pilots. Data definitions precede workflow validation; compliant service evidence precedes workforce cost removal. Each pilot needs four consecutive weeks at at least 90% SLA and 78% first-time resolution, without material safety or complaint deterioration. The company-wide day-90 targets are lower: 88% and 75%.

Finance validates the baseline and actual ledger effects. The Transformation Director coordinates milestones and escalation but cannot approve its own investment or claim line benefits. The Board retains envelope changes and customer exits above 2.00 annual revenue per relationship.

Source: SRC08: Workstreams and portfolio, section 11; SRC09: First 90 days and roadmap, sections 12 and 13; SRC10: Office and governance, sections 14 and 18; SRC13: Risks and issues, section 17. All case evidence is fictional.

Proposed resolution for consideration: endorse the Acme Service and Profitability Transformation strategic direction and hybrid delivery model for January 2027 to December 2028; approve an 18.00 conditional funding envelope comprising 12.00 expense and 6.00 capital, subject to accounting validation; and authorise an initial 3.50 mobilisation release with documented cash and capacity controls.

Reserve the remaining 14.50 for staged decisions. Require the CFO to provide a rolling 13-week cash forecast covering the full business, the CEO to confirm named resource releases, and accountable executives to accept the benefit profiles and service safeguards. Record open assumptions and any release conditions in the decision log. This wording remains proposed and unsigned.

At day 90, require a usable Finance baseline, controlled metric dictionary, separate four-week results for each pilot, benefit validation records, funded next-wave capacity, a current risk assessment and a cash forecast above the 8.00 floor. The Steering Committee recommends the next release; it does not convert an unmet condition into approval by reporting an average pilot result.

If the gate fails, preserve service coverage, investigate the failure and replan. A bounded remediation tranche needs an explicit decision, stated purpose and acceptance evidence. Hold wider rollout and dependent workforce reductions. The Board retains changes to the total envelope, material strategic scope and specified customer exits.

Source: SRC06: Investment and cash, section 9; SRC09: First 90 days and roadmap, sections 12 and 13; SRC10: Office and governance, sections 14 and 18; SRC14: Assumptions and gaps, section 19. All case evidence is fictional.

These items remain open in the fictional baseline. The decision paper does not imply that suppliers, Finance, customers or any Board have independently verified them.

Source: SRC14: Assumptions and gaps, section 19. All case evidence is fictional.