Business transformation,a complex process made easy with experience.
Your front end, your back end, your marketing, your systems, your processes, your lead generation. Not one at a time by six different vendors - all of it, as one business - then rebuilt so it runs better and makes more.
I'm James Webb. I founded LINK in 2012 and grew it into nine businesses running on systems I built myself. This is the same work, done for you.
James Webb
Founder, LINK.com.au
Proof in clients' businesses, not just ours.
Since 2012 the same work has been done inside more than a hundred client businesses, and inside every one of LINK.com.au's own.
100+
client businesses worked with - rebuilt, with overall profitability dramatically improved while simultaneously cutting costs.
$100,000s
hundreds of thousands of dollars of software subscriptions replaced across those clients, with systems they own outright.
9
LINK.com.au businesses running on the same systems - we did it to ourselves first.
Some of our work, built front end to back end.
Some clients need only the back end rebuilt; some need only a new front end. A full business transformation rethinks everything, then redesigns the front end too - and these three got the whole job. Visit them, and check the engineering facts, before we have spoken.
Visit feum.comFEUM
FinanceMember app and owner's Command centre, with every buy and transfer behind an explicit approval and a double-entry ledger underneath.
See the build →
Visit recruited.com.auRecruited
RecruitmentCRM and ATS in one workspace for Australian agencies: a Today screen, a pipeline that flags stalled candidates, and search that shows its working.
See the build →
Visit eventman.com.auEventman
EventsEnquiry to last round for mobile bars, caterers and hire: an event board, crew and rosters, checklists that re-date themselves, and the money owed.
See the build →
Every capture shows demonstration data. The clients are not named; the products are public.
Eight things I look at, and where each one gets fixed.
Business transformation services usually mean a framework and a deck. This is a list of the parts of your business, in the order I go through them, each one linked to the page or the LINK division that does that work.
Front end
The website and everything a customer touches before they pay you. Whether it is found, whether it converts, and whether what it promises is what the back end can deliver.
SEO and search, at LINK Marketing ↗Marketing and lead generation
Where leads come from, what each one costs, and what happens in the first hour after one arrives. Usually the part with the most leakage and the least measurement.
Marketing automation, at LINK Marketing ↗Back end
The CRM, the job system, the inventory, the quoting - the software the work actually runs on. Where no product fits, it gets built, and you own it.
Custom software →Systems
How the tools you already pay for connect, and where a person is the connector. Mapped before anything is bought or built.
Systems review →Processes
Quoting, invoicing, approvals, onboarding, follow-ups, reporting - the steps someone repeats by hand every day, which is the work that scales with headcount until it is automated.
Business automation →The numbers
Xero joined to the rest of the stack so the question 'how are we going?' has an answer that does not take a day to assemble.
Financial dashboards →AI, where it earns its place
Models built for specific jobs inside the system rather than a chatbot bolted to the front - and a straight answer about where AI does not belong yet.
AI consulting →Profit
The point of all of it. Once the systems show the margin by job, by service and by month, LINK Advisors' accountants turn that into the decisions that move it.
Increase your profits, at LINK Advisors ↗
How a transformation runs when one person owns it.
The reason most transformation programmes stall is that the person who diagnosed the problem is not the person who builds the fix, and neither of them is still there a year later. Here all three are me.
The ongoing seat: fractional CTO →We look at the whole business
Your website, your marketing, your lead flow, your systems, your processes and your numbers - together, the way they actually run day to day. You get a clear picture of where the work leaks, where people are doing a job software should do, and which parts are costing you most.
You get a plan you can act on
A written plan, in plain language, that says what stays, what gets connected, what gets replaced and what gets built - with the reason and the cost beside each one, and in the order that pays for itself soonest. You decide; nothing starts until you have.
We build it for you
You see working versions early and often, so you can steer the result while it is still easy to change. Each piece goes live on real jobs and real numbers, with your team using it as it lands - no long silence ending in a reveal.
We stay with you until you don't need us
A business keeps changing after the rebuild, so we stay in the room - making the next decisions with you, keeping what we built working, and stepping back when you have what you need. For most businesses that is the fractional CTO arrangement.
For clients, the before and the after.
Commercial tiling contractor
Was on simPRO - a capable platform that did a great deal they had no use for and never the things they needed. Now on one custom system for staff, jobs, scheduling and quoting. The saving was the smaller win; the bigger one was the revenue that had been leaking between quote and invoice.
Full write-up, on the custom software page →
Large online retailer
Out-of-the-box inventory and the standard web integration were the weakest part of the operation. Stock, customers and the storefront now run on one back end instead of three products and the glue between them.
Full write-up, on the custom software page →
Multi-service online business
The whole operation ran from an inbox. Now CRM, projects and people management on one system, follow-ups on automation, and each person's workload visible - so the same team takes on more work without hiring to cover the admin.
Full write-up, on the custom software page →
One transformation, three teams who do that work every day.
Technology and systems · this site
Me, as your CTO
Back end, systems, processes, automation, AI and the dashboard. Scoped, built and handed over by one person, then kept running under a fractional CTO engagement.
Front end and lead generation
Marketing team
Search, SEO, content and the marketing automation that follows a lead up - sold as plans, run on tooling built here.
Profit and the finance seat
Advisors team
The accountants who read the numbers the systems now produce, and turn them into pricing, margin and cash decisions. The virtual CFO beside the fractional CTO.
Digital transformation is a big job. With the right experience beside you, it is an achievable one.
Nobody should tell you this is small. Changing how a business is found, how it sells, how the work moves and how the numbers get read - while the business keeps trading - touches everyone in it. That is why so many digital transformation projects stall: not because the technology is hard, but because nobody in the room has done it before.
That is the part experience changes. A digital transformation consultant who has rebuilt more than a hundred businesses, and runs nine of their own on the result, already knows where the work leaks, which order holds, and which platform will not fit you no matter how it is configured. For an established Brisbane business the job is big and it is entirely doable - staged so each piece pays for the next, and finished with you owning the code, the data and the logic rather than renting them.
Not sure which part is costing you most? Most owners aren't, until it is mapped.
Tell me how the business runs today. It goes straight to me, and you get the order I would fix it in.
Common questions.
What is business transformation, in practical terms?
Looking at how a business runs end to end - front end, back end, marketing, systems, processes, lead generation and the numbers - and rebuilding the parts that are holding it back so it runs better and makes more. The enterprise version is a multi-year programme with a steering committee. The version an established small or mid-sized business needs is narrower and faster: find where work leaks, where people are the glue between tools, and where a platform never fitted, then fix those in an order that pays for itself.
What does a business transformation consultant actually deliver?
Here, two things most consultants do not: the build, and the seat afterwards. The first deliverable is a written read of the whole business with a keep / connect / replace / build decision against each part and what each costs. Then the work gets done - integrations, automation, custom systems, dashboards - by me, not handed to an agency bench. And because a business keeps changing, the ongoing version is a fractional CTO engagement rather than a report you file.
Is this the same as digital transformation?
Mostly, and the difference is in what gets measured. Digital transformation describes moving work onto better technology. Business transformation is the reason you would: the business should be easier to run and more profitable afterwards. Technology is nearly always the lever, so a digital transformation consultant and a business transformation consultant do similar work - but if the engagement ends with new software and the same margin, only the first half happened. So if you came looking for digital transformation consulting, this is it, with the margin measured as well.
Where do you start?
With whichever part is costing you most, which is rarely the one you called about. A business that asks for a new website often needs its lead follow-up fixed first; one that asks for automation often needs two systems connected before anything can be automated. The first conversation is a read of the whole thing, and the order comes from that - not from what I happen to sell.
Do you do the marketing and the accounting side as well?
Not personally, and that is the point of doing this inside LINK.com.au. The technology and systems work is mine. The marketing - SEO, search, campaigns, marketing automation - is LINK Marketing's, and the profit and finance seat - pricing, margin, cash, a virtual CFO reading the numbers monthly - is LINK Advisors'. One transformation, with each part done by the people who do that work every day, rather than one consultant stretching across all three.
How is this different from hiring an agency or a dev shop?
An agency sells you the thing it makes. A dev shop will build what you specify. Neither will tell you that the real problem is in a different part of the business, because that is not what they are paid for. The whole-business read comes first here, and the recommendation is as likely to be 'connect what you have and buy one product' as it is to be a build. When a build is right, I do it myself and you own it outright.
What size of business is this for?
Established businesses with a real operation - staff, customers, a stack of software that has grown by accident - where the owner can feel the drag but cannot see where it is. A small business digital transformation is often a better investment than an enterprise one, because the leaks are a bigger share of the margin and the result shows sooner - it is still a big job, which is why experience beside you matters. If you are pre-revenue, this is not the right page yet.
Where are you, and does it matter?
Fortitude Valley, Brisbane. A transformation touches every part of the business, but most of the work on it happens remotely, so clients are anywhere in Australia. For Brisbane businesses the whole-business mapping happens in person, which is where it helps most.
Tell me how the business runs today and where it drags.
This goes straight to me. You'll get a read of the whole business and the order I would fix it in - including the parts that belong with LINK Marketing or LINK Advisors rather than with me.