Client: Pemberly Books, a chain of 45 bookstores.
Question: it has lost money for three years and has nine months of cash. What should it do first, and what next?
What you have: cash and monthly burn, store results by group, and the stock it holds.
Done looks like: a longer cash runway, the stores to close, cash released from stock, the next move, and a recommendation. All figures are fictional.
Turnaround cases have a clock: the company runs out of cash on a known date. The order of work matters:
- Stop the bleeding: extend the runway. Runway = cash / monthly burn.
- Free up cash: sell slow stock, collect what is owed, delay what can wait.
- Fix the core: close the units that lose money, then work on margin and growth.
The trap is spending the first weeks on a growth plan the company won't live to see. Every proposal should say how it changes the runway.