Evidence first
We measure before we opine. If a number is an estimate we label it as one, and we show you how it was built.
About the firm
Built the way we wished our own advisers had been
Every one of us has been on the client side of a consulting engagement and found the experience less useful than the invoice suggested. Walton Rose is our attempt to remove the parts that made it that way.
Why we exist
Manufacturing advice is best given by people who have carried the number
There is a difference between knowing how a category strategy works and having been accountable for delivering one to a board that had already banked the savings.
Our consultants have held the operating roles: Chief Procurement Officer, VP of Sourcing and Supply Chain, Business Unit CFO. We have negotiated the contracts, owned the forecast, explained the miss, and lived with the consequences of our own recommendations. That is a materially different foundation from a career spent advising.
It also changes what we are willing to say. An adviser protecting a follow-on sale has an incentive to find more work. We would rather tell you that your problem is smaller than you feared, or that it sits outside our competence, and keep the relationship for when it is not.
Our commitments
- Senior practitioners deliver the work — no junior substitution
- Findings quantified in dollars and days, never maturity scores
- Scope and fee agreed in writing before we begin
- An honest read even when it shortens the engagement
- Recommendations sequenced so the cheap wins fund the rest
- Capability transferred to your team on purpose
- We decline work we are not qualified to do
How we work
Four principles we will be judged on
These are behaviours rather than values — specific enough that you can hold us to them during the engagement.
Candour
Bad news early, in private, with options. We will not manage a problem quietly and hope the next report is better.
Practicality
A recommendation your organisation cannot execute is not a recommendation. We plan around the team you actually have.
Transfer
Success is your team running the improvement without us. We build for handover from the first week.
Fit
Who we are right for — and who we are not
Being specific about this saves everyone a proposal process. We do our best work with mid-market manufacturers where a single decision can move the year, and where the leadership team wants a straight answer more than a reassuring one.
- Mid-market manufacturers, roughly $20m–$500m revenue
- Private equity portfolio companies in a hold period
- Family-held businesses professionalising operations
- Businesses integrating a recent acquisition
- Plants missing schedule or margin for unclear reasons
- Teams that want capability, not dependency
We are probably the wrong firm if…
- You need a large team mobilised across many sites at once
- You want a brand name on the report for board comfort
- The decision is already made and needs validating
- The work is outside discrete manufacturing
- You need software implemented rather than specified
In any of those cases we will say so in the first call, and where we can we will point you somewhere better suited.
Start with a conversation, not a proposal
Describe the situation and we will tell you what we think it needs, whether or not that involves us.