Business Consultancy Experience Across Customer-Focused Operations

Over 45 years of direct B2B experience has been built from the inside, not observed from the outside. It spans technical and operational roles, commercial leadership, and strategic advisory across organisations ranging from owner-managed businesses to large multinationals operating in complex international markets.

Having operated as supplier, customer, and competitor within the same industries provides a perspective that is difficult to replicate. It is an understanding not just of what good looks like, but of why it is often difficult to achieve and sustain in practice.

Where the Experience Comes From

Operating Across the Market

Experience as supplier, customer and competitor, with direct exposure to how commercial relationships behave under real pressure rather than in theory.

Working Across Sectors

Capital equipment, manufacturing, maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO), and distribution, across both OEM and independent aftermarket environments.

Leading Customer‑Facing Functions

Responsibility for service operations, product support, warranty, customer service, sales, marketing, and commercial strategy.

Operating at Multiple Scales

From SME environments navigating growth and resource constraints through to large, multi-site international organisations managing complex service ecosystems.

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A Principal‑Led Practice, Delivered Personally

Aftermarket Advisory Consulting operates as a principal‑led practice. Every engagement is delivered personally - no junior consultants, no dilution of experience, no separation between the initial conversation and the work itself.

Where specialist capability is required, a small network of trusted senior practitioners is brought in on a project basis. Clients gain access to broader expertise without the overhead or rigidity of a large consultancy, and without compromising the hands‑on, accountable approach that defines this practice.

Published Expertise

In 2025, Nigel had his experience captured in the book After-Sales Excellence: Driving Improvement, Customer Satisfaction and Growth, published by Business Expert Press. It is not a theoretical text. It is built on real-world case studies, anonymised but grounded in actual organisations facing actual problems. The decision by an independent academic and professional publisher to commission and publish that work is, in itself, a form of third-party validation.

It has been covered in 360 Magazine and CRM Magazine, and sits alongside the Revenue Integrity Model as a tangible expression of how this practice approaches the challenge of building businesses that perform consistently, not just at the point of sale, but across the full customer relationship.

Experience in Practice

Client confidentiality means we do not name organisations or attribute outcomes. The examples below are real; the nameplates have been removed.

Unlocking New Revenue From an Existing Installed Base

Developed and launched an aftermarket programme within a global OEM with an aftermarket business of approximately £1B.

Growth was constrained by long product lifecycles and limited opportunity to rely on new product introduction. The focus shifted to unlocking value from the existing installed base.

Introduced retrofit, modification, and upgrade programmes, including opportunities on competitor-installed equipment, creating new routes to revenue where none previously existed.

Generated £100m+ in new sales pipeline within 12 months in a structurally constrained market.

Transforming a Commercial Model to Usage‑Based Agreements

Led the transition of a UK-based business with a global customer base and turnover of approximately £50m from transactional and fixed-price contracts to usage-based agreements.

Customer resistance was significant, driven by concerns over loss of pricing control and reduced competitive tension. Internally, there were challenges around pricing, risk, and delivery capability.

Designed and implemented a commercial model built on price transparency and operational reliability. A gain-share mechanism aligned supplier performance with customer outcomes, shifting the relationship from adversarial to collaborative.

Secured a long-term exclusive agreement exceeding $5m with one of the organisation’s most commercially sceptical customers, who became the launch client for the model.

Building Aftermarket Capability From the Ground Up

Worked with a business historically focused on engineering consumables that had developed a new product offering, requiring a shift beyond transactional sales.

The organisation had no established aftermarket capability and limited experience supporting products in a fully customer-facing environment. The engagement therefore spanned strategy, process design and implementation, alongside recruitment and capability development and training.

Designed and deployed an aftermarket function covering repair and overhaul, parts distribution, field and technical support, and performance-based service offerings.

Established a structured aftermarket capability to support the new product in-service, enabling the business to move beyond point-of-sale transactions and build longer-term customer relationships.

The disciplines developed in aftermarket and after-sales environments are not niche concerns. Service design, customer retention strategy, installed base management, commercial accountability, and the alignment of what is promised at the point of sale with what is actually delivered are the foundations of long-term profitability in any B2B business where the relationship does not end at the point of purchase.

If your business sells to other businesses and cares about what happens after the sale, whether that means service contracts, repeat orders, customer advocacy, or simply keeping the customers you have worked hard to win, then this experience is directly relevant to you, regardless of your sector.

The operational and commercial challenges that erode performance in B2B businesses are remarkably consistent across industries.

The context may change, but the underlying problems rarely do.

Relevant Well Beyond Aftermarket

Rapid diagnosis of structural issues

Because the same commercial and operational patterns recur across sectors, it becomes possible to see root causes quickly, not through workshops or extended discovery phases, but through lived pattern recognition.

Clarity on what is signal and what is noise

Years spent inside service, support, sales, and commercial functions make it easier to distinguish between symptoms and causes, and to focus attention where it will have the greatest commercial impact.

A practical understanding of how change lands in the real world

Having been responsible for delivery, not just design, brings a grounded view of what teams can absorb, what they will resist, and what it takes to make improvements stick.

The ability to bridge operational reality and commercial intent

Experience on all sides of the market, as supplier, customer, and competitor, provides a rare ability to align what is promised, what is delivered, and what customers actually value.

A commercially unsentimental perspective

Long exposure to B2B environments builds an instinct for where value is created, where it is lost, and where organisations unintentionally undermine their own commercial position.

What This Experience Enables

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Decades spent operating in customer-facing, commercially accountable roles create a way of seeing organisations that cannot be learned from theory. The value lies in the ability to recognise patterns quickly, understand why performance is constrained, and identify what will actually shift outcomes in real operating environments.

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Why This Matters

Experience of this depth does not produce a methodology; it produces judgement. It allows organisations to move faster, avoid predictable mistakes, and focus on the changes that genuinely shift performance.

It is not about offering a set of services. It is about bringing lived, hard-earned perspective to the specific situation in front of you, quickly, clearly, and without jargon.