An operations consultant for small businesses that have outgrown how they run.
I'm Ben Chappell, an independent operations consultant for growing UK small businesses. I help owners when the business depends too heavily on them, the systems have been outgrown and growth is turning into chaos, and I stay to make the fix work rather than leaving you with a report.
Operations Deep Dive from £2,950 · Fractional COO from £1,500/month
Is this you?
I work with owners and managing directors of growing UK small and medium-sized businesses, usually where the business has grown faster than the way it is run. Unlike a general business consultant for small businesses, I focus on how the business runs day to day, and I stay to make the changes work. You might be saying:
- “The business can’t run without me.”
- “Every decision still comes back to me.”
- “We’ve outgrown our spreadsheets.”
- “Our systems don’t talk to each other, so we re-key everything.”
- “Growth has made things chaotic.”
- “I can’t see what’s going wrong until it’s too late.”
- “We bought the software but nobody uses it properly.”
- “Everyone’s using AI differently and we don’t know if it’s helping.”
Your business does not need to be broken to work better.
Six areas, in plain words.
Whatever the symptom, the cause usually sits in one or more of these:
What the business is trying to achieve
Whether the priorities are clear, and whether day-to-day decisions actually reflect them.
How work actually gets done
Where work gets stuck, duplicated, re-keyed or chased between people and teams.
Who owns what
Who decides, who does the work, and how much of it still comes back to you.
The systems and spreadsheets you use
Whether your tools fit the way the business works, are used properly and talk to each other.
The information you rely on
Whether the numbers are reliable enough to act on, and quick enough to get hold of.
How you know it's working
Whether you can see problems early, before they reach customers, margin or cash.
One symptom, traced across the six areas.
An illustrative example: orders are going out late, and the first suggestion is a new system.
The hand-off is the delay
Orders wait between sales and operations because nobody owns confirming the details, so they sit in an inbox until someone chases.
The order details are incomplete
Key details are captured differently by each salesperson, so operations re-key and query them before starting work.
Nobody owns it end to end
Each team does its part well; nobody owns the order from sale to delivery, so problems are only spotted when the customer complains.
Late orders are invisible until too late
There is no simple measure of order lead time, so leaders find out from customers rather than a report.
The fix was a clear owner, a short order checklist and one weekly measure, not a new system. Where a system change is needed, it is made after these are clear, so it actually sticks.
AI and automation sit inside the work, not beside it.
Those six areas are what I look at in every business, whatever the sector. AI and automation are ways of improving workflows, systems and data, not separate projects: look at the whole operation first, then decide where AI is worth the effort and what needs to be in place before choosing a tool.
Connecting systems, management information and day-to-day work.
At Newpark Solutions, I led work to bring finance and core operating workflows into a more connected ERP environment, establish a regular management and reporting rhythm, and coordinate immediate delivery with longer-term product and people plans.
The practical lesson was that software only helps when the workflow, ownership and information around it are clear.
Start with a conversation.
A short, no-cost conversation (up to 30 minutes) to understand what's happening and whether I can genuinely help. If the priorities aren't clear yet, a fixed-price Operations Deep Dive, from £2,950, establishes them. If they are, a focused project or fractional COO support, from £1,500 per month, delivers them.
If the need is temporary management capacity rather than a single project or a few days of fractional support, I can also step into a more embedded interim or fixed-term role, such as Operations Manager, Head of Operations, Operations Director or COO, for an agreed period.
You work directly with Ben.
I lead every engagement personally, bringing 17+ years of experience across the Royal Marines, Big Four consulting and hands-on leadership in SMEs, including as a Business Operations Director.
I'm based in the Midlands and work with growing businesses across the UK. I don't specialise by sector: how I look at a business is the same in any industry, but the plan that comes out of it is always specific to yours.
Your business does not need to be broken to work better.
If growth, complexity or years of workarounds have made the business harder to run, I can help you work out what to tackle first, lead the change or step in to add operational capacity.