I can’t afford a consultant… Or can I?

Top 3 reasons why bringing in expert support could help to drive efficiency and pay dividends 

When your business is growing — perhaps you’re a field service company, facilities maintenance provider, or specialist contractor with 10 to 50 engineers in the field — it can feel difficult to justify the cost of external consulting. Your customers are happy and keep coming back, and your team is getting the job done, so why bring in outside help? 

Yet, this is exactly when a small amount of specialist support can make a big difference. Left unchecked, small inefficiencies can quietly grow into bigger, and costlier, problems. 

You don’t necessarily need expensive systems to run efficiently, but there are key building blocks you’ll want to establish early to lay the foundations for long-term success. 

That’s why we’ve written this article: to share practical ways early-stage support can help you scale smoothly, avoid common pitfalls, and futureproof your operations. 

Reason 1: Good resource planning saves time, money, and stress 

When you’re delivering a mix of installations and ongoing service support, whether on fixed-price contracts or pay-as-you-go terms, the way you plan your workforce has a huge impact on profitability. 

But getting it right isn’t always straightforward. That’s where expert support can help. An outside perspective can uncover inefficiencies you might not even realise exist, and help you answer critical questions like: 

• How many engineers do you actually need? 

• Where should they be based? 

• What skills and tools are essential? 

• What’s your average job duration and travel time? 

• Do you need to hire or subcontract? 

It might seem obvious, but balancing productivity with cost control is one of the hardest things to do while growing. Being too cautious often leads to over-resourcing, driving up wage bills, vehicle costs, and inventory waste. Being too lean can mean your customer experience starts to slip. 

This is exactly where a consultant can give you the data and insight to get resourcing right before inefficiencies become costly. 

Reason 2: Using your engineers more efficiently unlocks hidden capacity 

As your business grows, so does the complexity of scheduling. Even small amounts of unproductive time can quickly snowball into significant, unnecessary cost. 

But inefficiency isn’t always obvious from the inside. That’s where bringing in external expertise can really pay off, by helping you uncover patterns, plug gaps, and rethink how your team is deployed day to day: 

• Do you have dedicated resources to carry out installations, with other engineers focusing on planned service visits? 

• How do you deal with the reactive breakdowns?    

• How do you manage your travel time?  

• Are there any significant amounts of unproductive time because you haven’t scheduled enough work for the engineers?  

A small amount of wasted time adds up over time. Misspent minutes scaled up across a 20-person team can result in over £100,000 per year in avoidable costs.  

With expert input, you can often make small scheduling or role adjustments that unlock far more value from your existing team, getting more done without growing headcount or increasing pressure. 

That’s where the right consultant can show you where time is being lost, and how to turn that capacity into performance and profit. 

Reason 3: Capturing the right job data leads to smarter operations 

Job closure is one of the most overlooked stages in the job lifecycle, but it’s a goldmine for improving your processes in the long run to drive high performance. 

This is where expert support can add real value by making sure you: 

Review your plan vs. your actual delivery 

Record how long the job actually took and compare it to the planned duration. Were there unexpected delays? Did anything go off track, and if so, why? Capturing these variances helps identify repeat issues and refine your planning for future jobs. It’ll help you to improve accuracy, efficiency, and resource forecasting over time. 

Maintain safety and compliance records 

Many end clients have legal responsibilities to ensure that their assets meet current regulations. Make sure you’re recording key safety certifications as part of the job closure process, which could include: 

• Electrical or gas safety certification. 

• Certification for lifts/elevators in residential buildings, hospitals, hotels, offices, and industrial facilities. 

• Confirmation that the asset is left running as intended by the building’s energy management system, rather than in manual mode.

Record job-level detail and faults 

Make sure the job record is complete, accurate, and clearly tied to the correct asset. You could ask: 

• Was the information captured about the job correct? 

• What did you find out about the fault and the cause of the problem? 

• Has this information been captured against the correct asset/asset ID? 

• What work was completed (what was the remedy)? 

• What parts were used, and have these parts been reordered? 

This level of detail helps ensure accuracy, continuity, and quicker fixes in future call-outs. 

Build asset intelligence over time 

As job data accumulates, it becomes a valuable resource for your efficiency planning. You’ll find that patterns start to emerge, so consider asking: 

• Are certain assets causing more issues than others?  

• Are there repeat faults across specific equipment types or locations?  

By capturing the right information now, you can inform smarter preventative maintenance strategies later, reducing reactive call-outs, improving uptime, and lowering costs. 

Evidence-collect for invoicing 

With many clients now relying on remote invoice auditing, it’s essential to ensure all required information is captured and submitted at the time of job closure. This often includes: 

• A completed checklist or standardised tick list confirming that all job data is present. 

• Full and accurate client details that are linked to the invoice. 

• Supporting documentation, such as before-and-after photos, compliance certificates, or signed job sheets. 

Missing even one piece of this information can delay payment or result in the invoice being rejected entirely. Worse still, you may have to revisit the site to collect evidence that could’ve been gathered the first time. A thorough, well-structured job closure process helps avoid this, improves cash flow, and protects your margin. 

Checking how good your plan was and learning from any mistakes will help you improve productivity and drive significant savings.  

And that’s where outside input can be most valuable: helping you turn everyday job data into a long-term operational advantage. From reducing delays to speeding up payment, capturing the right data is a foundational step toward greater efficiency. 

Do all this, and the savings can add up quickly 

You don’t need to rip everything up and start again to see measurable results. In fact, many of the biggest savings come from fixing small but repeated inefficiencies, especially when you’re running field teams at scale. 

Even a 20-person company could easily have a wage bill of £0.5–£1 million per year. Add in travel, overtime, and back-office operations, and it’s clear how small tweaks can unlock significant financial improvements. 

Here are just a few areas where targeted changes can deliver dividends: 

• Plan travel more efficiently: Reduce fuel costs and enable engineers to complete more jobs per day, getting more done with the same resources. 

• Increase your first-time fix rate: With better training and spare part planning, you reduce follow-up visits and shorten time spent on site. 

• Automate your job creation process: Cut down on admin by capturing the right info upfront; this leads to better scheduling and smoother delivery. 

• Reduce costly overtime: By improving planning and resourcing, you can avoid premium-rate overtime and protect your profit margins. 

• Strengthen long-term resource planning: Make sure the right people, with the right training and tools, are in the right place to deliver high-performance work. 

All of these improvements are within reach, but only if you know where to look. That’s where a fresh, outside perspective helps. 

So... Can you afford not to have a consultant? 

It’s easy to think consulting is a luxury: something for later, when you're bigger or busier. But small inefficiencies often cost more than you'd expect, and the earlier you catch them, the easier (and cheaper) they are to fix. 

Yet you don’t need a full-time consultant. The best place to start could simply be with a focused, practical Health Check that helps you see where time, money, or value is being lost. 

At ConsultHD, we’re not here to sell you systems (although we’ll recommend one if it’s right). We’re here to help you understand how your operation is really performing, and give you the insights to improve it. 

Our scalable Workforce Management Health Check gives you a clear, end-to-end view of how your jobs are planned, executed and closed, and what you can do to run more efficiently. 

To discover if a Health Check is right for your business: 

Start your self-assessment

Or...

Book your free 30-minute consultation