Insights
How we think about growth and profitability problems
35 articles organized by practice. Each one starts from public frameworks widely used in the industry and grounds them in the operating reality of companies in Mexico and LATAM.
Pricing & Revenue Management
PricingThe price waterfall: where margin leaks that nobody sees
Between list price and the margin that actually reaches the cash register there are between ten and twenty deductions. Most never appear on the invoice, and almost none have an owner.
6 min readBy José Manuel Noriega
PricingWillingness to pay: how to measure it before setting the price
Setting price by cost-plus-margin is delegating the decision to accounting. There are proven methods to ask the market before you launch.
7 min readBy José Manuel Noriega
PricingDiscount governance: corridors that actually get respected
Commercial policy usually exists on paper and not in the operation. The gap between the two is called an exception, and it's paid every month.
5 min readBy José Manuel Noriega
Corporate Strategy and Growth
StrategyGrowing the core before growing into adjacencies
The evidence from global firms is consistent: companies that first exhaust their core have a much higher success rate when they expand.
6 min readBy José Manuel Noriega
StrategyGo-to-Market: designing coverage that pays for itself
Most coverage models are inherited, not designed. The result is expensive attention for small customers and neglect for the ones who fund the business.
6 min readBy José Manuel Noriega
StrategyRegional expansion in LATAM: what to look at before entering
Entering a new country in the region rarely fails because of the product. It fails because of misread regulation, channel, and cost structure.
7 min readBy José Manuel Noriega
Operating Model and Efficiency
Operating modelA four-day accounting close: what has to change
A slow close isn't an accounting problem. It's the monthly bill for process decisions made years earlier.
6 min readBy José Manuel Noriega
Operating modelOrder to Cash: the working capital hidden in the process
Before negotiating a credit line, it's worth checking how many days of cash are trapped between the order and the collection.
5 min readBy José Manuel Noriega
Operating modelAutomating without cementing the mess
Automating a bad process makes it fast and permanent. The right order is to standardize, simplify, and only then automate.
5 min readBy José Manuel Noriega
Applied Behavioral Economics
BehavioralWhy customers who said they were satisfied still leave
Stated satisfaction is a poor predictor of retention. What predicts well is observed behavior at the critical moments of the journey.
6 min readBy José Manuel Noriega
BehavioralChoice architecture: how to present options so people choose well
How alternatives are presented changes the decision as much as the content of the alternatives themselves.
5 min readBy José Manuel Noriega
BehavioralRunning experiments with a real control group
Without a control group there is no learning: there's a story told with the numbers that survived.
6 min readBy José Manuel Noriega
M&A and Capital Raising
M&AThe equity story that survives due diligence
A value narrative collapses in the first week of review if the assumptions aren't backed by verifiable evidence.
6 min readBy José Manuel Noriega
M&ACommercial due diligence: what an investor actually checks
Beyond the financial statements, commercial review seeks to understand whether revenue is repeatable and defensible.
6 min readBy José Manuel Noriega
M&ARaising capital at a mid-sized Mexican company
The most common obstacle isn't a lack of investors, but a lack of structured information to talk to them.
5 min readBy José Manuel Noriega
Competitive Intelligence and Benchmarking
Competitive intelligenceA competitive benchmark that actually changes decisions
Most comparative studies end up as an appendix. The difference is comparing what can actually be acted on.
5 min readBy José Manuel Noriega
Competitive intelligenceWhite space: how to find the underserved segment
The best opportunities aren't where nobody competes, but where everybody competes poorly.
6 min readBy José Manuel Noriega
Competitive intelligenceCompetitive monitoring as routine, not as a project
An annual study arrives late for almost every decision. The alternative is a lightweight routine with few indicators and a fixed forum.
5 min readBy José Manuel Noriega
Organizational Structure Redesign
Organizational designLayers and spans of control: the diagnosis that precedes the org chart
Before drawing boxes, it's worth measuring how many layers separate leadership from the customer and how many direct reports each manager has. There are almost always more layers and narrower spans than the organization believes.
6 min readBy Santiago Noriega
Organizational designDecision rights: what must be defined before moving the org chart
Most reorganizations change reporting lines and leave decisions untouched. Six months later, the same issues are still escalating to the same committee.
5 min readBy Santiago Noriega
Organizational designSizing headcount with demand drivers, not with history
Budgeting next year's headcount as last year's plus a percentage perpetuates all accumulated inefficiency. Drivers let you defend every position.
5 min readBy Santiago Noriega
Talent Process Management
TalentThe real cost of turnover: what never shows up in HR's budget
Replacing a person costs between half and two years of salary. Almost none of that cost is recorded on the HR line.
6 min readBy Santiago Noriega
TalentSuccession plans that exist outside the slide deck
Almost every company has a succession plan. Very few can say who would fill the three positions that would hurt most tomorrow, and what that person is missing.
5 min readBy Santiago Noriega
TalentTalent analytics: five indicators that actually change decisions
HR dashboards usually have forty metrics and no decision attached to any of them. With five well-chosen ones, the whole cycle can be governed.
5 min readBy Santiago NoriegaTalent management9-box without theater: calibrating talent so it stops being an annual ritual
The performance-potential matrix does not fail because of the model, it fails because of the conversation. Without shared criteria and consequences, the 9-box is a picture nobody uses.
6 min readBy Santiago NoriegaTalent managementRolling out an HCM without breaking the operation
Most talent-platform rollouts slip because of process decisions nobody made before configuration started, not because of the platform.
7 min readBy Santiago NoriegaTalent managementPeople analytics with AI: anticipating turnover before the resignation
A turnover model is not there to predict who resigns: it is there to identify which conditions produce resignations and fix them while there is still time.
6 min readBy Santiago Noriega
Total Compensation and Performance
CompensationJob architecture: the order that must exist before the pay scale
Without well-defined levels and job families, any pay scale becomes a collection of exceptions nobody can defend to the board.
6 min readBy Santiago Noriega
CompensationInternal equity: separating the explained gap from the unexplained one
Two people at the same level earning different amounts isn't, by itself, a problem. The problem is being unable to explain why.
5 min readBy Santiago Noriega
CompensationVariable incentives: stop paying for volume and start paying for margin
If the sales bonus is calculated on revenue, the team is going to sell at a discount. It's not an attitude problem: it's the design of the plan.
6 min readBy Santiago NoriegaRewards and performanceBefore cutting headcount: recovering productivity without destroying capability
A linear cut lowers payroll for one quarter and returns the problem with interest. The right question is not how many people are surplus, but how much work is.
7 min readBy Santiago Noriega
Culture, Leadership and Change Management
ChangeWhy transformations fail, and what the successful ones do differently
Close to 70% of transformation programs don't meet their objectives. The design is rarely the cause; adoption almost always is.
6 min readBy Santiago Noriega
ChangeMeasuring adoption, not attendance: behavioral indicators
98% training attendance says nothing about whether anyone changed how they work. Adoption is measured in the system and in the outcome.
5 min readBy Santiago Noriega
ChangeVisible leadership: the commitment that actually moves the organization
The organization doesn't listen to the change message: it watches what directors do when the change costs them something.
5 min readBy Santiago NoriegaCulture and changeADKAR applied to a technology rollout: where it breaks in practice
Change models do not fail for being incomplete, they fail because teams work on knowledge and ignore desire. Nobody uses a tool they perceive as a threat.
6 min readBy Santiago NoriegaWe use artificial intelligence as an accelerator, never as a replacement for judgment
AI lets us analyze more data, faster and deeper. The decision, the business judgment and the accountability for results remain human.
Diagnostics in weeks, not months
AI-assisted processing of transactions, contracts, tickets and operational data to reach validated hypotheses in week one.
Advanced analytics and predictive models
Elasticities, churn propensity, workforce attrition and P&L scenarios modeled with machine learning and actionable simulators.
Continuous competitive intelligence
Automated monitoring of pricing, competitors, regulation and market signals, synthesized into executive alerts.
Adoption with AI in the workflow
Copilots, assistants and automations installed inside the client so value does not depend on the consultants.
We work with data governance, confidentiality controls and human validation on every deliverable: AI accelerates the analysis, it never replaces the decision.