compass

What’s worth changing in your business?

You’ve built a business that works. Now there are ten different things you could do next.

Compass helps you understand what’s really happening, compare your options and decide which changes are worth your time, money and attention.

If you’re wondering what should change in your business, I can help.

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Success creates options. Options create decisions.

You could raise your prices. Change your offer. Hire a team. Outsource some admin. Invest in technology. Improve your processes. Spend more on marketing. Stop doing something altogether.

The question isn’t whether there are things that you could change.

It’s: which changes will actually make your business stronger – and which ones simply waste your time, your money and your capacity?

The wrong change can cost far more than the decision itself

It is not just the money you invest. It is the time it takes, the disruption it creates and the other opportunities you give up while you pursue it.

Rigorous decision support shouldn’t only be available to big organisations.

Large organisations routinely spend significant sums on consultancy before committing money and people to major change.

They bring in external expertise to understand what is really happening, test assumptions, compare options and challenge whether the proposed investment is actually the right one.

Smaller businesses make decisions that can be just as consequential to the owner, but rarely have access to the same kind of structured decision support.

Compass brings that rigour to established smaller businesses, in a proportionate and practical format.

An independent business diagnostic and decision-support service

Compass is for established businesses considering what to change next.

Over around two weeks, we’ll explore how your business works today, what you want from it and the decisions you are facing. I’ll look beneath the day-to-day to understand what’s driving profit, where your capacity is going, and what might be holding your business back, before identifying and comparing the options most worth your attention.

What you’ll get from Compass

A clearer picture of your business

Understand what’s really driving performance, where your time and capacity are going, and what may be limiting profitability.

An independent perspective

Get an experienced outside view of the business, including assumptions, risks and opportunities that can be difficult to see when you’re immersed in the day-to-day.

A meaningful comparison

Understand the potential value of each option alongside the money, time, capacity, risk and dependencies involved so you can make an informed decision.

Clear recommendations

Sometimes we spend too much time thinking over decisions, going back and forth among options, and this can be detrimental both in the way that it consumes capacity, but also that the opportunities might be missed. I can help you determine what is worth prioritising, what needs further investigation, and what you should leave alone for now.

A practical way forward

A compass doesn’t tell you where you’re going. It helps you find the right direction.

Your Compass report won’t hand you a generic roadmap or tell you there’s only one way forward. It will help you understand where you are, see the options available to you and make a more informed decision about where to focus next.

You’ll leave with clear recommendations and a practical Compass report to help guide where you invest your time, money and attention.

Here’s what’s included

A proper understanding of your business

Before I make any recommendations, I take the time to understand the business you’ve actually built: how it works, where it makes money, how you and your team spend your time, what matters to you and what you’re tying to achieve.

I don’t start with assumptions that could apply to any business. I start by learning yours.

A view beyond the day-to-day

Sometimes the things affecting your next decision sit outside the business as well as inside it. I’ll complete a PESTLE analysis of the political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental factors relevant to your business and use this alongside my internal analysis to identify important strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

The aim isn’t to produce pages of theory or overwhelm you more information. It’s to spot the external changes, risks and opportuntities that could genuinely affect the decisions you’re making.

Your decisions, properly explored

You bring the questions, opportunities or changes you’re considering. I help you examine them.

That might be changing your pricing, hiring someone, investing in technology, introducing a new service, changing how work gets done, pursuing a new market – or deciding that now isn’t the right time to change something at all.

Compass isn’t a generic assessment of whether you should implement AI, automate everything or follow whatever happens to be trending. The analysis starts with your business and the decisions that matter to you.

Your strongest options compared

Where there are several possible ways forward, I’ll help make the trade-offs visible. We’ll look at potential value alongside the money, time and capacity required, as well as risk, dependencies and how confident we can be in the available evidence.

So rather than another list of things you could do, you can see which options actually deserve serious consideration.

Clear, independent recommendations

I’ll tell you what I think.

You’ll get my independent view on what appears worth prioritising, what I think needs further investigation, what assumptions we shouldn’t rely on yet and what I would leave alone for now.

A bespoke Compass report

Your final report is built around your business, your circumstances, and the reasons you brought your decisions to me. It isn’t a templated business health check with your name added to the front.

Compass brings together what I’ve learned about the business, the internal and external pictures, the options we’ve explored, the trade-offs between them, and my recommendations about where your time, money and attention could have the greatest impact.

Not another list of things to do. A clearer decision about what deserves doing.

You’ll leave our final conversation knowing:

what appears to be driving and constraining the business
which opportunities are worth investigating further
which changes are likely to create the most value
where there are risks, assumptions or missing information
what not to prioritise yet
where I believe your time, money and attention should go next

Book Compass

Compass is designed for women running established businesses who know something may need to change, but want greater confidence before comitting resources

It may be right for you if…

your business already has customers and revenue
the business works, but you know there is room to improve profitability or capacity
you have several possible routes forward and are unsure which deserves priority, or are stuck and open to hearing the options
you are considering an investment, hire, system, service change, pricing decision or growth move, or something you haven’t thought of yet
you want an independent perspective before committing time and money that you might not get a return on
you want the business to become more profitable without simply adding more work

It’s not the right service if…

you need bookkeeping, tax, accounting, legal or regulated financial advice
you want someone to run your marketing for you
you are looking for a detailed how-to guide for implementing a specific change
the business is still at idea stage and has not yet established customers or revenue

I’ve spent my career helping complex organisations decide what needs to change, and what doesn’t.

I’m Esther Parker, an experienced business change leader and founder of Primavia. My career has involved helping large, complex organisations understand what needs to change, test the assumptions behind their plans, compare options, understand risks and dependencies and turn strategic decisions into practical routes forward.

My Qualifications & Experience

Chartered Project Professional (ChPP) Association for Project Management
Association for Project Management – Project Professional Qualification
APMG Change Management Practitioner
Management of Portfolios
Evaluation Practitioner
12 years experience in complex project delivery, business change and strategic decision-making
Experience supporting complex, high-value change across major UK goverment organisations
Experienced in business cases, options analysis and investment decision support
Specialist in benefits, evaluation and measuring whether change actually delivers value
Experienced in analysing complex organisations across people, process, technology, infrastructure, suppliers, customers, costs and risk

Compass brings together the skills I’ve spent my career using to understand complex organisations, challenge assumptions, compare options and help people make better decisions about change.

How Compass works

1. Tell me about the business

Complete a diagnostic and provide information you have readily available.

2. We dig deeper

We have a focused conversation about your goals, constraints and current thinking.

3. I analyse the business independently

I assess the evidence, challenge assumptions and compare realistic options.

4. We review what I’ve found

You receive your Compass report and we work through my recommendations together.

5. You decide what happens next

You can take the recommendations and implement them yourself, or ask Primavia to support the planning and delivery of your changes.

Investment

A clearer understanding of your business. A comparison of your strongest options. A recommendation about where your times, money and attention could have the greatest impact.

£895 | Standard Compass price

£195 | Founder launch

I’m opening five founding client places while I refine the Compass experience and outputs ahead of full launch.

You’ll receive the complete Compass service at the founder price of £195. In return, I’ll ask for candid feedback on the experience, analysis and recomnededations.

Five places only. Once they are filled, Compass returns to £895.

If you know something in your business needs to change but don’t know where to start, I can help.

You don’t need more ideas. You need to know which direction is worth taking.