Zero-Based Transformation™ can enter before commitment, during design, during execution, during recovery, and at board-level value assurance. Each case study below is a different executive question, and each ends in a number that survived attribution, underwriting and validation. Every figure is classified — gross opportunity, underwritten, committed, realized, avoided or protected.
A $2.2B technology-enabled services enterprise had assembled 74 transformation initiatives claiming $142M of annual value. The initiatives were real and every one had a sponsor. What no one had established was whether, taken together, they amounted to the operating changes the strategy required. Zero-Based Scoping™ reconciled the portfolio to $78M underwritten and a $70M commitment before funding, against which $51M of realization was modeled in the first twelve months.
A $1.3B professional-services enterprise had authorized $62M to modernize its commercial and delivery platforms — 31 workstreams, a credible architecture, and a $38M annual benefit case. What was incomplete was the operating model required to turn that technology into business performance. Eleven workstreams could not explain the operating outcome they were expected to produce. Unsupported scope was removed — $9M of investment avoided before build — while most of the underwritable benefit was preserved: $21M of modeled annualized benefit against a $24M underwritten case.
A PE-backed, multi-site services company of $950M revenue carried a sponsor mandate to remove $25M of annual run rate from a $210M controllable cost base. Management had dozens of savings ideas. What it did not have was a distinction between savings that would reach the P&L and savings that would not. The applied model produces $21.8M of annualized structural run-rate reduction, with $18.1M modeled in year one against $9.6M of one-time cost to achieve.
A large professional-services organization had deployed generative AI across knowledge work for 1,200 professionals. Adoption was rising and the transformation dashboard was converting estimated time saved directly into value. Applying the published productivity benchmark, the gross opportunity was 288,000 hours and $22.8M a year. Underwritten against the operating model as it actually ran, $8.0M was economically convertible — from 100,800 hours.
A large service organization handled 1.2M assisted customer contacts a year at $9.25 fully loaded per contact — an $11.1M annual cost line under continuous efficiency pressure. Reading the demand rather than the handling showed that 36% of it was failure, repeat or potentially suppressible — generated by upstream processes, policies and systems. 169,000 contacts are modeled as removed at source. $1.09M of that leaves the cost base as a modeled annualized run-rate reduction; the balance of the fully loaded figure does not.
An $84M multi-year transformation was roughly 18 months in, with $46M spent and 61 active workstreams. Plans existed, governance met, milestones completed and status reported green or amber. Of $34M in claimed annual benefit, $9M could be tied to sufficiently established financial outcomes. Twelve months after the reset, modeled Finance-validatable annualized benefit reaches $28M, and $18M of remaining authorized investment is protected or redirected.
A $1.6B services enterprise presented $120M of aggregate transformation benefit to its governance bodies across seven major programs. Reporting was oriented toward milestones, risk, budget and RAG status. An assurance review reclassified $41M — 34% of headline value — before leadership continued treating it as an expected result. The Board committed to $63M of the $79M attributable, and $46.6M is the modeled twelve-month realization.
Zero-Based Transformation™, Zero-Based Scoping™ and GSDPI™ are marks of ETEGY.
A first conversation is exactly that. Low-risk, exploratory, and useful whether or not we end up working together.