{"id":399,"date":"2025-09-29T08:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-29T08:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/niallcooter.com\/?p=399"},"modified":"2025-09-28T19:55:02","modified_gmt":"2025-09-28T19:55:02","slug":"releasing-8-million-in-working-capital-a-building-services-success-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/liquintel.com\/?p=399","title":{"rendered":"Releasing \u00a38 Million in Working Capital: A Building Services Success Story"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Before founding my own practice, I worked with a \u00a3320 million UK-based building services company facing a familiar challenge: too much cash tied up in work-in-progress (WIP), and limited visibility into how quickly that cash could be converted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Client Issue<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The company operated across multiple service lines, with complex project lifecycles and a high volume of ongoing work. While revenue was strong, a significant portion of cash was trapped in WIP \u2014 slowing down liquidity and limiting the business\u2019s ability to invest in growth or respond to market opportunities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Despite efforts to improve billing cycles and project close-outs, WIP days remained stubbornly high. Leadership recognised that without a targeted intervention, they risked continued inefficiencies and missed opportunities to unlock value from their operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What We Did<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Working closely with finance and operational teams, we undertook a focused three-month initiative to reduce WIP and improve working capital performance. The approach included:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Data Diagnostics:<\/strong>\u00a0We mapped the end-to-end WIP lifecycle across service lines, identifying bottlenecks in project completion, billing, and approval processes.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Process Optimisation:<\/strong>\u00a0We streamlined workflows, introduced tighter controls around project milestones, and improved coordination between commercial and finance teams.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Behavioural Change:<\/strong>\u00a0Through targeted engagement with project managers and finance leads, we embedded a culture of accountability around WIP management \u2014 ensuring that cash conversion became a shared priority.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Performance Tracking:<\/strong>\u00a0We implemented simple but effective dashboards to monitor WIP movement and flag delays in real time.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Outcome<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The results were both immediate and impactful:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>WIP Days Reduced:<\/strong>\u00a0Over the three-month period, WIP days were reduced by\u00a0<strong>9 days<\/strong>, significantly accelerating the cash conversion cycle.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Cash Released:<\/strong>\u00a0This reduction unlocked\u00a0<strong>\u00a38 million<\/strong>\u00a0in working capital \u2014 a substantial injection of liquidity that could be redeployed across the business.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>DSO Maintained:<\/strong>\u00a0Importantly,\u00a0<strong>Days Sales Outstanding (DSO)<\/strong>\u00a0remained stable at an average of\u00a0<strong>41 days<\/strong>, demonstrating that improvements in WIP did not come at the expense of receivables performance.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>This engagement reinforced a core principle that continues to shape my approach:&nbsp;<strong>working capital is not just a finance issue \u2014 it\u2019s an operational opportunity<\/strong>. With the right focus, even short-term interventions can deliver lasting financial impact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>More soon on how this philosophy is evolving.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How I helped a \u00a3320m building services firm unlock \u00a38m in cash \u2014 in just 3 months. By reducing WIP days and maintaining DSO, we delivered fast, measurable impact without compromising operational flow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":402,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[15,5,9,7,8,12,14,4],"class_list":["post-399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-insight","tag-accrued-revenue","tag-cash","tag-cash-conversion-efficiency","tag-liquidity","tag-process-improvement","tag-transformation","tag-work-in-progress","tag-working-capital"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/liquintel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/liquintel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/liquintel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liquintel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liquintel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=399"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/liquintel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":401,"href":"https:\/\/liquintel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399\/revisions\/401"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liquintel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/liquintel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liquintel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liquintel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}