Vader Barclay Consulting
Your strategy, your numbers, your market: in sync.
Management, logistics, accountancy and marketing advisers working as one team. Growth plans arrive costed, budgets arrive with commercial intent, logistics are planned efficiently, and nobody gets to blame another supplier.
01 · Approach
Advice bought in pieces never adds up.
An accountant closes the year. An agency spends the budget. A consultant writes a plan. Nobody owns the arithmetic between them. Vader Barclay exists to close that gap: one engagement lead, accountable for all three.
Senior people on your work
The advisers who scope your engagement are the advisers who deliver it. No pitch team, no handover to somebody you have never met.Measured in your P&L
Every engagement carries commercial measures agreed at the outset and reported monthly. Progress is legible in the management accounts.We stay for delivery
A strategy that was never executed is a cost, not an asset. We work alongside your team until the plan is actually running.02 · Engagement
Three ways to work with us.
Every engagement is priced against a written scope before it starts. Choose the shape that fits the decision in front of you. Most clients begin with the first and move to the second.
Diagnostic
Fixed fee · two weeks
A structured review of your financial position, market standing and operating model, ending in written findings and a prioritised list of what to fix first.- Review of management accounts and cash position
- Interviews with the people who run the business
- Market and commercial assessment
- Written findings and priority list
Suits: first engagement, or a board that needs an independent read
Advisory retainer
Monthly · one month’s notice
A continuing relationship across the disciplines you need, with a named senior adviser, a fixed monthly scope and reporting against measures agreed at the outset.- Monthly management reporting and reforecast
- 90-day execution cadence with named owners
- Board attendance where useful
- Direct access between meetings
Suits: businesses without a full-time finance or strategy function
Project
Fixed price · written scope
A single, bounded piece of work with a defined deliverable and end date: a funding pack, a positioning rebuild, a cost programme, an exit readiness review.- Scope, price and timeline agreed in writing
- One senior adviser accountable throughout
- Deliverable handed over and explained
- Optional review at 90 days
Suits: a specific event such as funding, sale, launch or restructure
03 · Services
Six disciplines.
Engage a single discipline or the full practice. The scope is always written down before the work starts.
Discuss your priorities- 01
Financial Management
Bring order and foresight to the numbers. Management reporting, cash-flow forecasting and financial controls that let you decide early rather than explain late.- Management accounts
- Cash-flow forecasting
- Budgeting
- Board reporting
- KPI frameworks
- Financial controls
- 02
Business Planning, Strategy & Execution
Decide where the business is going and how it gets there. We pressure-test the operating model and convert the plan into a cadence your team can hold.- Growth strategy
- Operating models
- Market entry
- Business plans
- 90-day execution
- Board advisory
- 03
Strategic Marketing
Marketing judged on contribution, not impressions. Positioning first, then a demand engine built on unit economics you can defend to a board or an investor.- Positioning
- Brand architecture
- Demand generation
- Channel mix
- CAC & LTV modelling
- Campaign governance
- 04
eCommerce & Digital Commerce
From platform choice to contribution margin. Commerce operations that convert, retain and scale, with clarity on which of the three is costing you money.- Platform selection
- Conversion optimisation
- Marketplace strategy
- Retention
- Fulfilment economics
- Analytics
- 05
Financial Guidance & Capital
Be ready before the conversation starts. Model, narrative and data room prepared so funding, refinancing or an exit runs on your timetable rather than someone else’s.- Funding readiness
- Financial modelling
- Investor materials
- Valuation support
- Due-diligence prep
- Exit planning
- 06
Performance & Transformation
Protect margin while you grow. We find the cost, process and systems drag that quietly caps profitability, then remove it, with interim leadership where needed.- Cost optimisation
- Process redesign
- Automation
- Systems integration
- Interim leadership
- Change management
04 · Method
Four stages, published in advance.
You will know what happens, who is doing it and what you receive at each stage before anything is signed. No discovery phase that quietly becomes the engagement.
Diagnose
A structured review of financial position, market standing and operating model, drawing on your records and interviews with your people.- Output
- Written findings
- Duration
- 2 weeks
Design
A prioritised plan with named owners, sequenced timelines and a financial case for each move, so the board approves on evidence.- Output
- Costed plan
- Duration
- 2–4 weeks
Deploy
We work alongside your team through implementation, holding the cadence, unblocking decisions and absorbing what your people cannot.- Output
- 90-day cycles
- Duration
- Ongoing
Drive
Monthly reporting against agreed measures, with the plan adjusted to what the data actually shows rather than what it assumed.- Output
- Monthly review
- Duration
- Ongoing
05 · What changes
The point is not the report.
It is what the business does next. These are the operational changes clients tell us they notice first.
- Monthly numbers that arrive early enough to act on, in a format the board actually reads.
- A costed growth plan with named owners, so priorities survive the first busy week.
- Marketing spend tied to acquisition cost and lifetime value, not to channel fashion.
- Cash visibility far enough ahead that funding is a choice rather than an emergency.
- A business that would survive due diligence, whether or not you intend to sell it.
“The cash-flow model was the first thing we had ever been given that we actually used weekly. It changed how the board argued about spending.”
06 · Insights
Written for owners.
Short, practical pieces drawn from live engagements, not thought leadership for other consultants.
The management pack that actually gets read
Most board packs report the past accurately and the future not at all. Six changes that turn reporting into a decision tool.
Your value proposition is a pricing decision
Why positioning work that never touches the P&L rarely survives a budget review, and how to write one that does.
Is your website data telling you the truth?
A short analytics audit checklist. If three of these are wrong, this year’s acquisition decisions rested on bad numbers.07 · Questions
Before you get in touch.
If your question is not answered here, ask it directly. We would rather answer it now than in a proposal.
Most clients turn over between £1m and £50m, or are approaching that range quickly. Below it, a diagnostic plus a focused piece of finance or marketing work is usually the right scope. Above it, we typically work alongside an existing finance function rather than replacing it.
Diagnostics are a fixed fee agreed before we start. Ongoing advisory is a monthly retainer scoped to agreed deliverables and reporting. Project work is quoted as a fixed price against a written scope. We do not bill in unexplained hourly increments.
No. Your accountant handles compliance, statutory accounts and tax. We handle the management information, forecasting and commercial decisions that sit on top of it. We work with your existing practice and are happy to sit in the same meetings.
An introductory consultation is normally arranged within a few working days. Diagnostics usually begin within two to three weeks of scope agreement, depending on the availability of your records and the people we need to speak to.
Both. Diagnostic interviews and delivery workshops are markedly better in person, so we come to you for those. Reporting, modelling and monthly reviews run just as well remotely, which keeps costs down and pace up.
That is where most of the value is, so it is where we stay. We work through implementation with your team and report monthly against the measures agreed at the outset. Retainers can be paused or ended with a month’s notice.
08 · Start the conversation
Tell us what is actually holding the business back.
An introductory consultation is a straightforward conversation about your position and your priorities. No charge, no proposal deck, and no obligation to go further.
What to expectForty-five minutes with a senior adviser, followed by a short written summary of what we heard.
What to bringYour last set of management accounts, if you have them. If you do not, that is already useful to know.
Vader Barclay ConsultingManagement · Accountancy · Marketing