Services
Consultancy
Advice you can act on, when you need a clear plan or a steer on what to do next.
In a nutshell.
Good work starts before anything is collected, delivered or published. We give independent, expert advice to help you decide what to do, in what order, and how.
It might be a small one-off piece, or a plan for a wider programme. The aim is clarity: what you are trying to achieve, what options make sense, and what the next steps look like. We can then carry the work out, or hand you a plan or brief for your own team or another supplier.
A clear plan before you start saves time, money and wasted effort, and helps you aim at the people most likely to say yes.
5%
of the organisations you might sell to are actively in the market at any one time. The rest are not yet ready to hear from you.
Dawes (2022), Ehrenberg-Bass Institute and LinkedIn B2B Institute, the “95-5 rule”.
6–10
people are now typically involved in a business buying decision, so evidence has to work for several readers.
Gartner (2024).
What we offer
Our consultancy services.
Select an area to see more detail.
Scoping and project design
From “we need to know” to a clear plan.
We help you move from “we need to know X” to a workable plan that answers the right question, uses the right methods and produces findings you can use. You do not need to know research terms: we translate the options into plain choices and trade-offs.
Depending on what you need, the result can be a short design note, a full project plan or a supplier-ready brief.
More detail
We can help with
- Refining the question, and the decision it should inform
- Recommending an approach and methods, with the reasons
- Deciding who to hear from and how many, through sampling
- Planning ethics, consent and safeguarding
- Designing questionnaires and interview guides, with clear questions and a sensible length
- Planning how data will be stored, shared and kept, including anonymisation and GDPR
- Planning how you will analyse and report the findings before you start
- Setting roles, timelines and resources
Useful when
- You know you need evidence but are not sure what to ask or how
- You are worried about collecting the wrong information
- You need to justify a proposal to funders, leaders or partners
- The work involves people, sensitive topics or safeguarding
- Earlier attempts led to messy results or low response
- You are planning something large and need a joined-up approach
Evaluation planning
Working out what success looks like.
Evaluation works best when it is planned from the start. We help you decide what you want to change, how you will know it has happened, and how to keep the process light enough to be used. A theory of change is often a helpful starting point.
More detail
We can help with
- Clear aims and success criteria
- Choosing outcome measures and tools
- Setting a baseline
- Simple reporting that gets used
Useful when
- You are about to launch something and want evaluation built in
- Funders or leaders want evidence of impact
- A programme is changing or growing
Independent review and briefings
A fresh pair of eyes.
We can act as a critical friend for your service, report or evidence base, giving honest, constructive feedback. We can also turn complex evidence into short, clear briefings for your stakeholders.
More detail
We can help with
- Reviewing a strategy, service, report or evidence base
- Short briefings that support decisions
- Clear options and recommendations
Useful when
- You want a fresh view before making a decision
- A board, funder or partner needs a short, clear summary
- You want to check that your approach is sound
Supplier briefs and commissioning
Buy the right thing.
We know you may want to run the work yourselves, or commission someone else. We can help you do that well, with a clear brief and a fair way to compare offers.
More detail
We can help with
- A clear, supplier-ready brief
- Questions for bidders and a scoring approach
- Support through the selection process
Useful when
- You are using an outside supplier and want to commission well
- You want to run work internally with a credible plan
- You need to compare bids fairly
Finding the right opportunities
Put your effort where it is most likely to count.
At any moment, only a small share of the organisations you might work with are actively looking for what you offer. We use published data, such as benchmarking surveys, regulatory and inspection reports, annual reports and public datasets, to find organisations whose documented gaps or priorities match what you do. Then we help you approach them with something specific and backed by evidence.
It focuses your time on fewer, better-matched conversations, and gives you a real reason to start each one. It suits businesses, charities and public bodies looking for customers, partners, funders or commissioners.
More detail
What you get
- A prioritised list of organisations, with the reasons each is a good match
- A short profile of each, setting out its documented gaps and priorities
- A tailored proposition for each, showing how you could help and what the gap may be costing them
- Draft outreach and briefing notes for each approach
- A refreshed list as new data is published, if you want to keep going
How it works
- Scoping. We agree the sectors and service areas to focus on, and the outputs you want.
- Sources and mapping. We find the reports, surveys and datasets that hold the information, and map them against what you offer.
- Gap analysis. We find organisations with documented gaps or priorities that you are well placed to help with.
- Propositions. We develop a tailored approach for each priority organisation, weighing the cost of the gap against the benefit of acting.
- Handover. We present the strategy and brief you on each organisation.
Useful when
- You have limited time for business development and want to focus it
- You are entering a new sector or region and are unsure where to start
- You want to approach organisations with evidence rather than a generic pitch
- You are looking for partners, funders or commissioners and want to know who is best placed
- Public data exists on your field but nobody has turned it into a shortlist
Want to see how this could pay back? See the evidence or try our ROI calculator.
How we work
Four principles, every project.
Whatever the size of the project, we start with understanding, work in collaboration with you, keep communication open, and stay flexible as things develop.
Get in touch
Let’s talk about your project.
Whatever your size or stage, we’d be glad to discuss how we can help.