What does the supply chain audit include?

Five workstreams: freight and landed cost, fulfilment and 3PL contracts, inventory and demand planning, suppliers, and catalogue economics. Every finding carries a number and a source, and the output is a prioritised action plan ranked by commercial impact. The methodology behind each workstream is published on our blog, not kept in a drawer.

How much does the audit cost?

It is a fixed fee, tiered to revenue: $2,970 for emerging brands, $5,970 for scaling brands, and $9,970 for established brands. Where that sits against the wider market is covered honestly in our supply chain consulting cost guide on the blog. The fee is credited in full against your first month if we go on to fix what we find.

What if the audit finds nothing?

Then you have a well-run operation and a document proving it, which is worth having. But we stand behind the work: if the audit does not identify at least three times its fee in quantified opportunity, it is free. Every audit to date has cleared that bar.

How long does it take, and what do you need from us?

Two to three weeks, run remotely. We need read access to the numbers: freight and 3PL invoices, your contracts, the stock file, sales history, and supplier costings. A short scoping call up front, a few working sessions in the middle, findings presented to the founder or senior team at the end.

What happens after the audit?

Three doors, all of them fine. Run the findings yourself, and some clients do exactly that. Fix one defined problem as a scoped project. Or move into the fractional COO engagement, where the audit becomes the roadmap and its fee becomes the credit.

Is this a consultant's report or an operator's plan?

An operator's plan. A typical consultant diagnoses and hands you a document. We diagnose knowing we may be the ones executing it, which changes what gets recommended: everything on the plan is something we would be willing to own delivering.

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Supply Chain & Operations Audit

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Fractional COO Services

Operations Projects & Advisory

Other services

Fractional COO Services

Operations Projects & Advisory

Overview

Most brands know the operation is getting harder before they know exactly why.

Stock is building up. Lead times are slipping. Freight is getting expensive. The 3PL feels harder to manage. Buying decisions are being made from spreadsheets nobody completely trusts.

The audit gives you a clear picture of what is actually happening underneath the business.

We go through inventory, planning, suppliers, freight, fulfilment and product economics, then show you where the operation is working, where it is breaking, and what needs to change next.

You leave with a prioritised plan your team can actually use.

Fixed fee. Usually completed in two to three weeks.

Audit Pricing

Process

Understand the business

We start with the founders or leadership team. What has changed. Where the pressure is showing up. What you already suspect is wrong. Then we agree what needs investigating.

Get into the operation

Inventory. Suppliers. Production. Freight. 3PLs. Costings. Sales history. Forecasts. Purchase orders. We work from the actual data, contracts and invoices - not just what people think is happening.

Work out what matters

We separate the real problems from the noise. Where there is a financial impact, we quantify it. Where the issue is operational - ownership, planning, process or risk - we make that clear too. No fake precision.

Build the plan

We present the findings directly to the founder or senior team. What needs fixing now. What can wait. What it is likely to cost or save. Who should own it. Then you decide what happens next.

What we examine

Fulfilment and 3PL

What the warehouse is actually costing you and whether the operation matches what you signed up for. Rates. Surcharges. Service. Accuracy. Credits. SLAs. Returns. Customisation. And, importantly, whether the current setup still works for the size of business you have become.

Fulfilment and 3PL

Inventory and demand planning

Where you are overstocked. Where you are exposed to stockouts. How much cover you are carrying by SKU and whether buying decisions are being made from a real plan. We look at sales history, current stock, open POs, future demand, launches, promotions and the way those numbers are being turned into buying decisions. Because a lot of inventory problems start months before the stock reaches the warehouse.

Inventory and demand planning

Suppliers

Costings, lead times, MOQs, payment terms, reliability, quality and dependency. We look at where the supplier base is strong, where the business is exposed, and where better commercial terms or better suppliers may be needed. The question is not just whether a supplier is cheap. It is whether the supplier base still works for the business you have become.

Suppliers

Catalogue economics

Which products carry the business and which quietly drain it. Not just gross margin. Freight, fulfilment, returns, discounting, inventory holding and the amount of cash required to keep the product in stock. A SKU can look profitable on paper and still be a bad place to put your cash.

Catalogue economics

The operating plan

You leave with a clear, sequenced plan of what needs to change. What matters now. What can wait. What is costing the business money. Where cash is tied up. Where there is operational risk. And who should own each piece. Not a 70-page deck that gets opened once. Something the business can actually run.

The operating plan

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Frequently asked questions

Relevant Case Studies

A selection of our portfolio across our operations consultancy and fractional services.

Seth Media

Seth Media had built serious demand across a dozen markets, but the operation underneath it hadn’t kept pace. We audited the supply chain, found where the pressure was coming from and built the plan to fix it.

$3m +

in margin recovery opportunitites

$200k

modelled in freight savings

Seth Media

$3m +

in margin recovery opportunitites

$200k

modelled in freight savings

Dog Friendly Co

Dog Friendly Co. built a loyal customer base of more than 1 million dog owners across the US, UK and Australia. When the operation started struggling to keep up with that growth, we came in to rebuild it.

$1m +

found in operational issues

$755k

savings