From Over-Billed Principals to Operational Clarity

Challenge: Taylor leads a 42-person engineering firm with $10M in revenue. Despite strong demand, principals were billing nearly 90% of their time, margins varied by discipline, and WIP visibility was limited. Growth depended heavily on a few senior engineers.

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Solution: To stabilize and scale the firm, Taylor:

• Clarified utilization targets and pricing discipline by role.
• Improved WIP/backlog reporting and scope management.
• Shifted principal focus toward mentoring, QA, and strategic client work.
• Began building a structured leadership bench across disciplines.

Results

• Margin Improvement:

Discipline-level gross margins increased by 5 points through stronger utilization alignment and scope control.

• Operational Visibility:

Improved WIP reporting gave leadership clearer forecasting and decision-making confidence.

• Leadership Depth:

Reduced key-person dependency and created a stronger path toward succession and long-term enterprise value.