Library/Leak 19

The service line that no longer earns its place

An offering kept because it once made sense: a legacy product, a seasonal service, a favour that became a line item. It consumes operational attention out of proportion to its margin, and it is frequently the reason several task-level leaks exist at all.

ExitEliminateManual workC–D · a quarter to six monthsContainer

How you know you have it

“Which service line would you quietly stop selling if nobody noticed?”

What kind of leak it is

A time leak — it costs hours

How to measure it

total hours across everyone touching the line × 52, against its contribution margin

Annualized the same way everywhere: duration × frequency × people × 52.

Typical range — illustrative

large, and frequently invisible until totalled: the hours are spread across people, so no individual feels it

An order of magnitude to prime your eye, not a statistic and not a claim about anyone's result. The only number that matters is the one you measure.

The move — Eliminate

Eliminate, or standardize hard and re-price. Several task-level leaks often disappear with the line itself; count that, but count it once. Commercially consequential, so it is your decision, not a recommendation.

Where it lands in a Time P&L

Manual work

How long a fix takes

C–D · a quarter to six months

What to do about it

Tools that fix this

No tool names this category on its own yet. The two below apply to all twenty.

And across everything

← All twenty categories