The First Hundred Days of Ownership

Weeks one to four: listen

The first month is for conversations, not conclusions. We sit with every manager, most long-tenured employees, and a cross-section of customers and suppliers. The questions are simple: what works, what is broken, what would you fix first? By the end of the month a picture emerges that no due-diligence process could have produced — and the organisation has learned that the new owner asks before acting.

Weeks five to eight: stabilise

Transitions create anxiety, and anxious organisations lose people and customers. We move early on the basics of confidence: payroll and supplier payments run flawlessly, key staff hear directly about their future, and the handful of customers who account for most of the revenue get a personal visit. Nothing sophisticated — just proof that the ground is solid.

This is also when we install the minimum viable reporting: weekly cash, monthly management accounts, and a short list of operational measures the team helped choose. Not a dashboard for its own sake — a shared view of reality.

Weeks nine to fourteen: the first real changes

Only now do we begin to change how the business runs, and we start with changes the team asked for in month one. Fixing the scheduling system everyone complained about, or finally hiring the second estimator, does more for credibility than any strategy document. Early wins should belong to the team, not to the new owner.

The larger moves — pricing, product rationalisation, organisational structure — wait until the hundred days are done. By then decisions are grounded in observed reality, and the people who must carry them out have reason to trust the hand on the tiller.

A hundred days of restraint can feel slow to a buyer eager to justify the deal. In our experience it is the fastest route to lasting change, because it is the only route that brings the organisation along.