Case study ยท Operational Diagnostic
Inner Bath & Shower: 25 improvements, one root cause
How a 3-day diagnostic gave a 40-year-old business the structure to grow without depending on its founder.
Improvements identified
Root cause
Delivered in the first 90 days
"After two days with Drew, I said to him that it was worth more than months of coaching."
The situation
Inner Bath & Shower has spent 40 years building a product that genuinely stands apart: a proprietary bath and shower relining system, trusted by homeowners, hotels and property managers across Australia. The team is capable and committed, and demand from commercial clients is real.
But the business was operating across five markets, and each one ran differently. Some worked well because of the person in the role. Others relied on the founder stepping in to fill the gaps himself.
The problem
Businesses built on relationships and trust often work brilliantly, up to a point. Roles grow around the people in them rather than around what the business needs. Decisions flow back to the founder. Knowledge lives in people's heads rather than in documents.
That works while the business stays the same size. It becomes the ceiling the moment you try to grow, because the founder can't be in five markets at once.
The turning point
Every finding traced back to the same root cause.
The diagnostic found 25 improvements across operations, sales, structure and interstate markets. None of them were isolated problems. Each one led back to the same thing: a business built on personal trust rather than documented structure. That changed the question from "what do we fix?" to "what do we build?"
What we did
- Two days on site, with structured interviews across the Brisbane team and the interstate operations lead
- An operational and commercial baseline covering operations, sales, organisational structure and accountability in each market
- A replicable city-market blueprint defining how every market should run without the founder in the day-to-day
- A gap assessment measuring each market against that blueprint
- A diagnostic report with 25 improvements, each rated for effort and impact and sequenced into a roadmap: quick wins now, then 30 days, 90 days and six months
The result
Inner Bath & Shower came away with a clear picture of where it stood and a practical roadmap for where to go next. The report was built to be acted on immediately, with quick wins that could start that week and cost next to nothing.
What happened next
The diagnostic led straight into a 90-day Operational Improvement Program, and 16 of the 25 improvements were delivered in that time. The clearest sign of change is Sydney. A new State Lead model was designed, recruited for and in place by the end of August, and the founder no longer has to run that market himself. The next phase will tackle the systems, sales strategy and quality framework that will carry the model into the next market.
"I had worked with business coaches before who were good at identifying what was wrong but left me to figure out the rest. After two days with Drew, I said to him that it was worth more than months of coaching. The difference is that he comes in, does a proper diagnostic, interviews the team independently, and comes back with a structured report that tells you exactly what needs to happen and in what order.
That report gave me the confidence to move into a much larger piece of work. Since then, we have been building the actual systems the business needs: role descriptions, customer journey maps, staff handbooks, recruitment frameworks. All designed around one goal: reducing the dependence on me so the business can grow without me being the bottleneck.
If you want someone who will work out what needs doing and then stay until it is done, that is Drew."
Andrew Lawson, Managing Director, Inner Bath & Shower
What this means for your business
A business that has been built on trust and relationships has real strengths. But if every decision still comes back to you, growth will stop at the limit of your own time.
If you're not sure how much of your business depends on you, guessing won't fix it. A diagnostic shows you where the business depends on you, and what to build first.