What This Looks Like—And What It's Worth
Six patterns that hide value. Six examples of what happens when you make it visible. examples of what becomes visible—and what changes.
01
Customer cross-subsidization
You know you have good customers and not-so-good customers. What you don't know is that 20-30% of your customers are actively destroying value—and your best customers are unknowingly paying for them.
It's invisible in aggregate. At customer level, it's obvious.
One client rebalanced their portfolio. Same revenue. 340 basis points of margin back. Within one quarter. No customer lost, no price increase, no cost-cutting program. Just stopped subsidizing the economics that didn't work and reinvested in the ones that did.
Your competitors are still averaging their customer portfolio. You know exactly who subsidizes whom.
01
Customer cross-subsidization
You know you have good customers and not-so-good customers. What you don't know is that 20-30% of your customers are actively destroying value—and your best customers are unknowingly paying for them.
It's invisible in aggregate. At customer level, it's obvious.
One client rebalanced their portfolio. Same revenue. 340 basis points of margin back. Within one quarter. No customer lost, no price increase, no cost-cutting program. Just stopped subsidizing the economics that didn't work and reinvested in the ones that did.
Your competitors are still averaging their customer portfolio. You know exactly who subsidizes whom.
02
Productivity variance
You have people who are 3-5 times more productive than others doing the same job with the same tools. You know who they are. What you don't know is exactly what they're doing differently—or how to help everyone else learn from them.
We show you. At task level. What your best performers do that creates the variance.
In practice, the best people were already working around the problem. Once that became visible to everyone, change stopped needing permission.
Gap closed from 2.4x to 1.3x in 16 weeks. Productivity improvement worth $18M annualized. Change cost: removing three constraints your best people had already figured out how to work around, then making it easy for everyone else to see and adopt.
They're still running training programs. You remove constraints.
02
Productivity variance
You have people who are 3-5 times more productive than others doing the same job with the same tools. You know who they are. What you don't know is exactly what they're doing differently—or how to help everyone else learn from them.
We show you. At task level. What your best performers do that creates the variance.
In practice, the best people were already working around the problem. Once that became visible to everyone, change stopped needing permission.
Gap closed from 2.4x to 1.3x in 16 weeks. Productivity improvement worth $18M annualized. Change cost: removing three constraints your best people had already figured out how to work around, then making it easy for everyone else to see and adopt.
They're still running training programs. You remove constraints.
03
Price leakage
Between list price and what you actually collect sits a 15-25% gap. Discounts negotiated three years ago that auto-renew. Freight you absorb because someone in sales promised it once. Volume rebates triggered by purchases that would have happened anyway.
Nobody decided to give away $23M. But across 40,000 SKUs and a hundred people making pricing decisions, that's what happened.
We found it in the first quarter. Stopped 60% of it in the second quarter—the easy wins where contracts were up for renewal or terms could be clarified. The rest required renegotiation over six months, but now you knew exactly what you were negotiating for and what it was worth.
Your competitor is still flying blind on this. You see the full picture.
03
Price leakage
Between list price and what you actually collect sits a 15-25% gap. Discounts negotiated three years ago that auto-renew. Freight you absorb because someone in sales promised it once. Volume rebates triggered by purchases that would have happened anyway.
Nobody decided to give away $23M. But across 40,000 SKUs and a hundred people making pricing decisions, that's what happened.
We found it in the first quarter. Stopped 60% of it in the second quarter—the easy wins where contracts were up for renewal or terms could be clarified. The rest required renegotiation over six months, but now you knew exactly what you were negotiating for and what it was worth.
Your competitor is still flying blind on this. You see the full picture.
04
Service economics
Sales promises service levels customers value. Operations delivers them faithfully. Nobody connects what those service levels cost to what customers would actually pay for them. So you're over-serving—sometimes by a lot.
We traced service cost variance to four specific practices. Showed the team what each practice cost and what value it created. They made the call on what to keep and what to stop.
Best practice spread over eight weeks as teams saw results and adapted methods to their contexts. $31M annualized. Service quality scores unchanged because you stopped doing the expensive things customers didn't care about and kept doing what they did.
That's not cost reduction. That's competitive repositioning.
04
Service economics
Sales promises service levels customers value. Operations delivers them faithfully. Nobody connects what those service levels cost to what customers would actually pay for them. So you're over-serving—sometimes by a lot.
We traced service cost variance to four specific practices. Showed the team what each practice cost and what value it created. They made the call on what to keep and what to stop.
Best practice spread over eight weeks as teams saw results and adapted methods to their contexts. $31M annualized. Service quality scores unchanged because you stopped doing the expensive things customers didn't care about and kept doing what they did.
That's not cost reduction. That's competitive repositioning.
05
Inventory distribution
Your inventory turns look fine in aggregate. Zoom in and you have 60 days in one location, 3 days in another. The total is right. The distribution is wrong. And it's costing you.
Rebalanced across 200 locations. $47M in working capital released. Customer service levels actually improved because inventory was finally where demand was.
Your CFO got her balance sheet back. Your COO got better service metrics. Your competitors wonder why their service costs run high.
05
Inventory distribution
Your inventory turns look fine in aggregate. Zoom in and you have 60 days in one location, 3 days in another. The total is right. The distribution is wrong. And it's costing you.
Rebalanced across 200 locations. $47M in working capital released. Customer service levels actually improved because inventory was finally where demand was.
Your CFO got her balance sheet back. Your COO got better service metrics. Your competitors wonder why their service costs run high.
06
Network repositioning
Your pricing model says the shipment is profitable. What it doesn't show is the repositioning cost of moving equipment empty to where it needs to be next. The price looked good. The economics didn't.
An entire industry had gotten the network repositioning economics wrong. Pricing decisions were being made without the full cost picture.
Once visible, pricing strategy changed overnight. Routes got repriced. Network flows optimized. $140M captured in the first year.
Competitors price the way they always have. You price to actual economics. That gap compounds.
06
Network repositioning
Your pricing model says the shipment is profitable. What it doesn't show is the repositioning cost of moving equipment empty to where it needs to be next. The price looked good. The economics didn't.
An entire industry had gotten the network repositioning economics wrong. Pricing decisions were being made without the full cost picture.
Once visible, pricing strategy changed overnight. Routes got repriced. Network flows optimized. $140M captured in the first year.
Competitors price the way they always have. You price to actual economics. That gap compounds.
While your competitors are optimizing their constraints, you're removing yours.
© 2026 Quantara Partners
© 2026 Quantara Partners