Know what to fix first, and what to leave alone.
The Altitude Diagnostic is a senior-led examination of how your business wins customers and gets work done. It ends in a short, board-level readout: the highest-value opportunities, what to do about each, in what order and why, and the economics behind every recommendation.
Four questions, answered
Where is the value?
Where time, capability and money are being lost, and which of those losses are worth fixing at your size and stage.
What should we do about it?
A specific intervention for each opportunity, expressed as one of nine moves, with the expected impact and how confident we are in the estimate.
In what order, and why?
A Now/Next/Later roadmap ranked by impact, feasibility and confidence, so the first moves fund and de-risk the later ones.
What should we leave alone?
The things that look like problems but aren't worth touching yet, and the tools that are fine as they are. Saying no is part of the value.
Nine lenses
Most reviews look at one function. The Diagnostic looks at the whole business, because the most expensive problems sit between functions.
Strategy and commercial model
How you make money, where margin comes from, and what growth would demand of the business.
Operations and process
How work actually flows: intake, quoting, delivery, hand-offs, approvals and the workarounds in between.
Systems and technology
What you run, what it costs per seat and per year, what overlaps, and what doesn't connect.
Data and reporting
Whether the numbers leaders rely on are timely, trusted and defined the same way by everyone.
AI readiness and opportunity
Where AI would genuinely help, what's stopping it (data, policy, skills), and what's already happening informally.
Workforce capability
Where skilled people spend time on low-value work, where expertise is trapped in a few heads, and what would help.
Customer experience
Response times, follow-up, self-service and the moments where customers wait, repeat themselves or leave.
Growth and marketing maturity
Whether marketing is measured in booked revenue, how leads are captured and followed up, and visibility in search and AI search.
Risk, governance and change readiness
Privacy, security, AI use, key-person dependency, and the organisation's capacity to absorb change.
How we quantify, honestly.
Every material opportunity is modelled three ways, because the cost of a problem grows as the business grows.
Current state
What it costs today, in hours, dollars, delay or risk.
Do nothing
What it will cost as you grow if nothing changes: more hires to absorb admin, rising software spend, slower responses.
Improved state
What changes with the recommended intervention, and the capacity it releases for higher-value work.
Every estimate carries a confidence label
| Measured | Taken from your systems or a timed sample |
|---|---|
| Modelled | Calculated from measured inputs and stated assumptions |
| Estimated | A reasoned figure from interviews and comparable work |
| Inferred | Likely, from indirect evidence; worth testing |
| Qualitative | Real but not sensibly quantifiable |
We report capacity created, such as hours released for higher-value work, rather than jobs removed. Estimates are estimates, never guarantees.
Nine moves
Every recommendation resolves to one of these. Building is one move in nine, and we will recommend other providers, or nothing, when that's the right answer.
- Build
Create something you'll own, when nothing available fits how you work and the economics clearly favour it.
- Buy
Adopt a proven product. Often the fastest, cheapest answer.
- Improve
Get more from what you already pay for: configuration, data hygiene, training.
- Integrate
Connect systems so information moves once, automatically, instead of being re-keyed.
- Automate
Hand a repeatable process to software, with people handling the exceptions.
- Remove
Stop doing it, or cancel the tool. The cheapest move there is.
- Change
Redesign the process, role or decision rights, before any technology.
- Train
Build the skills and habits so people use what they have well.
- Leave alone
It works, or it isn't worth the disruption yet.
What you receive
A readout short enough for a board meeting, with the detail underneath for the people who'll act on it.
Executive position
One page: where the business stands and the scale of the opportunity.
Critical findings
The few things leadership must understand, with the evidence behind each.
Opportunity portfolio
Every opportunity, prioritised by impact, feasibility and confidence, shown visually.
The economics
Capacity, revenue, cost and risk for each opportunity, in the three states, with confidence labels.
Roadmap
Now, Next and Later, with dependencies, owners and the decision points between stages.
First moves
What to do in the next 90 days, and the opportunity register with the full detail underneath.
How it runs
Indicative: most Diagnostics take 4 to 8 weeks, depending on the size of the organisation and how quickly we can reach people and data.
Scope
Agree the tier, the lenses that matter most, who we'll speak to and what data we need.
Interviews
Leadership and key staff, then the people who do the work. Short, structured, and confidential.
Systems and data
Your tools, software spend, sample data and reports. A timed sample where it matters.
Quantify and prioritise
Model each opportunity in three states, tag confidence, and rank by impact, feasibility and confidence.
Readout
A working session with leadership: findings, roadmap and first moves, with time to challenge every number.
A good fit if
- You're an owner, CEO, COO or GM who can act on the findings
- Growth is being held back by capacity, systems or visibility
- Software costs keep rising without a matching gain
- There's pressure to "do something with AI" without a clear plan
Not a fit if
- You want a free audit as a prelude to a sales pitch
- The people who make decisions won't be involved
- You already know exactly what to build and need a builder
What we need from you
- Time with leaders and key staff
- A list of systems and what they cost
- Sample data and current reports
- Org chart and process notes, if they exist
- Anything you've already tried with AI
Tiers and pricing
Focused
One business unit or location, with the lenses that matter most. For organisations with a clear area of concern.
Enterprise
Several departments or locations, deeper data work and financial modelling. For organisations planning significant change.
Each tier is a fixed fee, agreed in writing before we start, so the scope can't creep. Implementation, software licences and detailed technical specifications are outside the Diagnostic.
Questions, answered.
Isn't a diagnostic just a sales process?
It shouldn't be, and ours isn't designed as one. The readout stands on its own: you can act on it with us, with other providers or yourselves. We'll recommend other products, or doing nothing, when that's the right answer, and we flag anything that's important but outside what we do.
Do we have to use Altitude to implement the recommendations?
No. Many clients do, because we already understand the business, but the roadmap is written so anyone competent could deliver it.
How is this different from the free AI readiness assessment?
The AI readiness assessment is a five-minute self-check that gives you a general score. The Diagnostic is senior people working with your actual data, staff and systems, and it produces specific, quantified recommendations.
What does it cost?
A fixed fee set by tier, agreed in writing after a short scoping call. We'll tell you the fee before you commit to anything.
What happens to our data?
It stays confidential and is used only for your Diagnostic. We're happy to sign a confidentiality agreement. We never use one client's confidential information to advise another.
Who does the work?
Senior people lead every interview and own every recommendation. AI helps us analyse more information, faster, but a person is accountable for each finding and each number.
Start with a 30-minute call.
We'll tell you whether a Diagnostic is worth it for your business, which tier fits, and what it would cost.