Design how the business will run first. Then specify what the technology must build.
An 8–12 week design engagement. We run decision workshops with your commercial team and lock the operating model block by block — every decision evidenced, every option discounted with the reasons recorded. The output is a build-ready specification your implementation partner can quote against, not interpret from.
Five deliverables. Decisions evidenced. Build-ready.
L2 produces concrete artefacts your implementation partner is bound to build against. Each one carries the decision trail — the evidenced recommendation, the workshop outcome, the options discounted, and the reason behind every choice.
Workstream Specification Packs
One pack per major design area. Each contains the design principles, the operating model, every decision made, and the build requirements your partner is bound to.
Target Operating Model
How the business will run after the platform goes live. Customer processes, decision rights, exception handling, governance — specified before configuration starts.
Build Specification
Entity model, fields, triggers, SLAs. The technical artefact your partner configures against, with an owner named per row — including where third-party tools sit.
Target Technology Architecture
The system map. Where data lives, how it moves, which platform owns the truth. Integration boundaries fixed before any code is written.
90-Day Calibration Plan
The post-launch window for refining values, cadences and edge cases the design surfaces in use. Change control agreed before go-live, not invented after.
L2 needs a completed L1 audit.
L2 builds on what L1 surfaces. We don’t skip the audit and start specifying — the design brief from L1 sets the scope and the priorities. If you have an audit from another party, we’ll review it as part of L2 scoping. See the L1 audit →
Five steps. Decisions made in sequence, never skipped.
Each step produces the input the next one runs against. The decisions are workshop-driven and audited. The build team gets a specification — not a vision.
Inception
Workstream scoping with the sponsor. L1 outputs synthesised, peer benchmarks gathered, operational owners named per block.
Evidenced recommendation
We bring a recommended design into the room before each workshop — built from what your team said in L1 and what works at comparable organisations. Your team then challenges it, improves it, and decides it. The starting point, not the answer.
Decision workshops
Your commercial team works through each block. Options discounted with the reasons recorded. The room often goes broader than the recommendation — that’s the value.
80% readout
The corrected recommendation, carrying the room’s decisions. A final refinement window before the specification locks. Every decision evidenced and reversible through change control.
Build spec & handover
Decisions translated into entity model, triggers, SLAs. The specification handed to your implementation partner with the decision trail intact.
Workstreams. Designed in parallel, integrated by design.
Most L2 engagements run four to five workstreams. The exact mix depends on the L1 audit. The ones below are examples drawn from a customer-lifecycle programme — an L2 specification can cover any commercial transformation domain L1 identifies, not just CRM. Each workstream produces its own specification pack, and the governance workstream is the integrating layer that keeps the others aligned through delivery.
Customer Acquisition
The lead-to-customer journey. Channel routing, qualification, deal authority, pricing exposure — the architecture of conversion in your specific business.
Onboarding & First Value
The first 90 days after acquisition. Setup, activation, the first-value moment, the relationship manager intro — the window where retention is decided.
Lifecycle Engagement
Day-to-day servicing, self-service usage, lifecycle communications — the interactions that drive renewal or attrition over time.
Renewal & Retention
The renewal window. Value evidence, risk signals, the conversation guide — turning renewal from a cold ask into a confirmed decision.
Eight to twelve weeks. Four design phases.
Timing scales with the number of workstreams. The sequence is fixed: scoping before drafting, drafting before workshops, workshops before lock. We don’t parallelise the architecture — that’s where most programmes fail.
Inception
Workstream scoping · owner alignment · L1 synthesis · peer benchmark pack
Recommendations & workshops
Evidenced recommendation drafted per block · decision workshops with your commercial team · options discounted
80% readouts
Corrected recommendations carrying the room’s decisions · final refinement · specification lock
Build specification
Entity model · triggers · SLAs · owner per row · handover with audit trail
What L2 prevents. What L2 costs. What it costs in-house.
A specified operating model is the difference between a programme that delivers the business case and one that spends its time defending scope creep. Three numbers worth knowing.
What L2 prevents
15–30%
Typical rework cost without a specificationOn platform programmes that proceed without a specified operating model. Configured processes get torn out and rebuilt because the gap surfaces too late.
What L2 costs
3–6%
Of the implementation budget it protectsL2 typically costs a small fraction of the platform spend it de-risks. It isn’t a standalone purchase — it’s insurance on the delivery you’ve already approved.
What it costs in-house
£30K/mo
Senior FTE, fully loaded with pension & benefitsTwelve weeks comes to £90K — the same as L2 at its upper bound. But the FTE arrives without the frameworks and without a blue-chip transformation track record — and the salary continues long after the project should have ended.
£45K–£90K. Scoped to the workstream mix.
L2 scales with the number of workstreams, the complexity of each, and the integration depth. We confirm the figure during scoping against the L1 design brief — never as an open range carried into the engagement.
Worth knowing: every L2 engagement includes the 90-day calibration plan and the full decision trail. Both protect against drift once the build begins.
Architecture before technology.
Build the software around the business, not the business around the software.
Discuss an L2 engagement →