The 22-point operations audit I run for every new client

Before I touch anything in a client's business, I spend a week running through the same 22 checkpoints. I've used this list — or some version of it — across manufacturing, retail, D2C, print, interior design, and services businesses.

Every time, it finds something the founder didn't know was broken. Usually several things.

I'm sharing the full list here. Run it on your own business. Be honest with your answers. If more than 6 of these flag a problem, your operations need work before your next growth push.

Section 1 — Supply Chain (5 checks)

1. Do you know your top 10 vendors by spend? If you can't name them and their annual spend without looking it up, you don't have vendor visibility — you have vendor chaos.
2. When did you last renegotiate your top 3 vendor contracts? If it's been more than 18 months, you are almost certainly paying above-market rates.
3. Do you have written contracts with delivery timelines and quality rejection clauses? Verbal agreements work until they don't. Usually at the worst possible time.
4. Do you have a backup source for your top 3 input materials? Single-vendor dependency is a ticking clock. One bad monsoon, one family dispute at a supplier's end, and you're stuck.
5. Do you track on-time delivery per vendor? If nobody is measuring it, you're running on trust. Trust is not a supply chain strategy.

Section 2 — Inventory (4 checks)

6. What is your current inventory turnover ratio? If you don't know this number, there is likely ₹30–₹80L of working capital quietly sitting in stock. For most Indian SMEs between ₹5Cr–₹20Cr, target ratio is 6–10x per year.
7. Do you have a list of dead or slow-moving stock? Go to your warehouse right now. The stuff in the corner that nobody has touched in 4 months — that is cash you already spent and cannot use.
8. Do you run a weekly inventory count on your top 20 SKUs? Annual stocktakes are not enough. By the time you find a discrepancy, the damage is done.
9. Are your reorder points documented and followed? Or does someone just order when things feel low? "Feels low" is not a supply chain system.

Section 3 — Processes and SOPs (4 checks)

10. Are your top 10 daily operational tasks written down anywhere? If the answer is no, every task runs on tribal knowledge. When a key person leaves, the knowledge goes with them.
11. Can a new employee do the job without asking the founder or a senior team member? If no, you don't have a process — you have a dependency.
12. Have you updated your SOPs in the last 12 months? SOPs written two years ago may not reflect how you actually work today. Outdated SOPs are almost worse than no SOPs.
13. Do your team members follow the SOPs consistently? The honest answer for most businesses is "sometimes". If SOPs aren't followed, either the SOP is wrong or there's an accountability gap. Both are fixable.

Section 4 — Team and Accountability (5 checks)

14. Does every person in your operations team know exactly what they are responsible for this week? Vague roles create vague results.
15. Do you review key operations metrics weekly? Not monthly. Weekly. Monthly reviews only find problems after they've become crises.
16. Is the founder making decisions that should be made by the operations manager? If yes, you don't have an operations manager — you have an assistant to the founder.
17. When something goes wrong, do you know within 24 hours? Or do you find out when a customer complains? Speed of problem detection determines speed of recovery.
18. Do you have a clear escalation path for operational decisions? Who decides what, up to what amount, without checking with whom?

Section 5 — Cost Leaks (4 checks)

19. Do you track cost per unit or cost per order? If you're only looking at revenue, you may be growing sales and shrinking margins at the same time. It happens more than you think.
20. Have you mapped every recurring monthly expense in operations? Utilities, storage, contract labour, maintenance — line by line. Most businesses have 3–5 expenses that made sense two years ago but no longer do.
21. Do you know your biggest single source of waste in production or fulfillment? Not a guess — an actual measured number. Returns, rework, rejected materials, spoilage. Pick the biggest one and attack it first.
22. Is your delivery or logistics cost tracked as a percentage of order value? As businesses grow, logistics costs tend to rise as a percentage if nobody is watching them. I've seen this number quietly double over 18 months.

What to do with your results

Count how many of those 22 points flagged a real gap.

1–3 gaps: Your operations are reasonably healthy. Pick the top one and fix it this month.

4–7 gaps: You have real leaks. The good news is none of these are hard to fix — they just require someone to own them and a system to track them.

8 or more gaps: Don't try to fix everything at once. Pick the 3 that are costing you the most money right now and start there. Call us.

Every business that can't scale has the same thing in common: the systems never kept up with the growth. The audit doesn't fix anything. It just shows you where to start.