Meridian Advisory Group

01 / The brief

A growing consultancy. A fragmented picture.

Meridian Advisory Group is a fictional professional services consultancy employing 5,000 people across client delivery, management and support functions. Leadership needs a reliable way to understand where employee time goes, how client work is billed and which projects contribute to commercial performance.

02 / The business problem

More hours recorded. Less clarity on profitability.

Inconsistent timesheets, disconnected project codes and unclear cost allocation make financial performance difficult to reconcile. Without trustworthy reporting, decision makers cannot confidently identify underutilised capacity, excessive administrative workload or the true margins of client engagements.

The central question: where is employee time creating value, and where is it being lost?

03 / The analytical approach

Establish trust before measuring performance.

I will audit the original records, document data quality failures, validate employee and project identifiers, and reconcile time, rates, discounts and billing. The resulting data model will support analysis of utilisation, project profitability, operational workload and workforce composition.

Recommendations will be based on measurable patterns rather than assumptions. Nonbillable work is not automatically waste, and any HR comparisons will be considered with appropriate context and privacy safeguards.