Better businesses.Better decisions.Better performance.
Independent business advisory for established owner-managed businesses.
Black Key Consulting helps established businesses improve profitability, strengthen operations, implement practical AI and automation, and prepare for their next stage of growth.
A Black Key Capital company
Most businesses outgrow the way they are managed long before they outgrow their market.
The methods that built the business to this point rarely carry it through the next stage. These are the patterns we are typically asked to address.
Revenue grows. Profit doesn't.
Turnover is up on three years ago, but margins have eroded and nobody can say with confidence which customers, products or contracts are responsible.
Everything runs through the owner.
Key decisions, client relationships and approvals depend on one person. That caps growth, exhausts the owner and reduces what the business is worth to a buyer.
The numbers arrive too late.
Management accounts land weeks after month-end, if at all. Decisions on pricing, hiring and spending are made on instinct rather than information.
The business isn't investable yet.
Funders, buyers and strategic partners ask for financial information, governance and management depth the business has never needed before.
We help established businesses perform better today and become more valuable tomorrow.
Four capabilities, one objective: improving the economics and enterprise value of the business.
Performance Improvement
Identify and execute the changes that improve profitability, from pricing and margin to cost and working capital.
Performance Improvement detailsOperational Advisory
Build a business that runs on structure, process and accountability, with less dependence on the owner.
Operational Advisory detailsAI & Automation
Apply AI and automation where they genuinely improve profit and productivity, with the data, processes and safeguards to make them work.
AI & Automation detailsStrategic & Transaction Advisory
Turn growth ambitions into a practical plan, and prepare the business for investment, acquisition or an eventual sale.
Strategic & Transaction Advisory detailsExecution, not report-writing.
We work alongside owners and management teams until the changes are in place, and we measure our work against agreed commercial outcomes.
- 01
Diagnose
Understand the economics, operations and constraints of the business.
- 02
Prioritise
Identify the highest-value interventions and agree what success looks like.
- 03
Execute
Work alongside management to implement the changes.
- 04
Measure
Track the impact against the commercial outcomes agreed at the start.
Senior-led. Specialist-supported.
Every engagement is led personally by a senior advisor. Where the work calls for it, we bring in specialist expertise in finance, operations, legal, HR, technology, marketing, corporate finance and M&A, including fractional CFO and COO support, scoped to the problem rather than billed by headcount.
Senior attention
The person you meet is the person who does the work.
Low bureaucracy
No layers of juniors, no lengthy onboarding, no padded scopes.
Commercial focus
Every recommendation is tied to profit, cash or business value.
Flexible specialists
The right expertise when it is needed, without carrying its cost when it isn't.
Part of the Black Key ecosystem
Black Key Consulting is part of the Black Key Capital group, bringing together business advisory, operational expertise and an investment-oriented perspective.
Our focus is helping established businesses become more profitable, better managed and better positioned for growth, investment or a future transaction.
Advisory company
BLACK.KEY.CONSULTING
Performance. Operations. AI. Execution.
Each consulting engagement is a standalone advisory mandate. Where a client is interested in investment, this is considered separately by Black Key Capital and its investment committee, on its own merits. Learn more about Black Key Capital
Understand what is holding your business back.
Our Business Diagnostic identifies the commercial, operational and financial constraints limiting performance and highlights the highest-priority opportunities for improvement. It starts with a short Microsoft Teams call with one of our consultants.
Insights
Practical writing on how established businesses make, keep and grow profit.
Why revenue growth can hide a deteriorating business
What to look at when turnover rises but the business feels harder to run.
Publishing soonWhy owner dependency destroys business value
How buyers and funders price a business that cannot run without its owner.
Publishing soonIs your business ready to be sold?
The questions to answer honestly before speaking to a buyer.
Publishing soon