Business Problem Framing

Fictional worked illustration from the public repository, not a recorded agent run or a verified client outcome. Any additional figures, thresholds and market signals are scenario assumptions, not observed results. No generated PDF or finished deck is included.

Decision brief

Status: provisional. By the budget meeting in ten business days, the CFO must choose whether to fund the CRM now, defer it for targeted diagnosis, or pursue a lower-cost operational response. The objective is to select a credible margin-recovery action, not to prove that a CRM is necessary. Target magnitude and investment hurdle require CFO agreement.

The supplied accounting bridge shows a £0.3m profit decline entirely reconciled by the £0.3m rise in included variable costs. Operating margin fell from 20% to 10%. This does not prove that a CRM cannot help; it means conversion is not yet an evidenced explanation for the observed bridge. Constant total revenue also does not prove stable price, volume or mix.

Boundary: the same business and two full financial years, using F1/F2 cost definitions. In scope: revenue/mix, delivery-cost bridge, metric-definition change and whether a CRM addresses a verified mechanism. Out of scope without approval: live migration, procurement commitments and a company-wide restructuring.

Issue tree and competing hypotheses

Operating profit change = revenue change − variable-cost change − fixed-cost change
├─ Revenue: volume × realized price, with product/customer mix reconciliation
├─ Variable costs: delivered activity × unit cost, with rework and service mix
└─ Fixed costs: comparable classification and any exceptional items

This identity reconciles the supplied totals. It does not guarantee complete operational causality; misclassification or unmatched periods must still be checked.

Recommendation and handoff

Defer an unconditional CRM commitment while running the bounded diagnosis. This is a provisional recommendation, not CFO approval. Ask the CFO to agree the recovery objective, investment threshold and who can validate benefits on day 1.

Stop expanding the analysis once the material bridge is reconciled and the CRM mechanism can be accepted or rejected against the agreed hurdle. If data remains incomparable by day 5, disclose the unresolved exposure and take a staged funding option to the meeting; do not fill the gap with a savings claim.

Handoff: F1–F3, comparable metric definitions, reconciled bridge, rival hypotheses, unverified CRM benefits and remaining scope choices. Use these fields to prepare interviews or an executive decision memo.

Editable starting files: decision brief and hypothesis plan.