CUSTOMER STORY · Littlefish
Building a scalable revenue engine
How Merlin5 helped Littlefish identify the operating model, execution priorities, and commercial improvements required to support its ambition of doubling the size of the business within three years.
The ambition
2x
Growth target
Ambition to double the size of the business
3yr
Time horizon
Target timeframe to double the business
1
New CRO
Mark Ingleby appointed to lead commercial growth
About Littlefish
Littlefish is one of the UK's leading managed IT and digital workplace service providers, helping organisations improve user experience, operational performance, and technology resilience through a broad range of managed services and support solutions.
Backed by Bowmark Capital, the business has built a strong reputation for customer service, technical capability, and long-term client relationships across a diverse customer base.
As the organisation continued to evolve, the leadership team wanted to ensure the commercial operating model was capable of supporting the next stage of growth.
Areas of expertise
Managed IT services
Digital workplace solutions
User experience improvement
Operational performance
Technology resilience
the problem
The ambition
Littlefish had a strong customer base, strong customer relationships, a respected market position, and a clear ambition for growth. Having recently joined as Chief Revenue Officer, Mark Ingleby was tasked with shaping the next phase of growth — with an ambition to double the size of the business over the following three years.
The opportunity was not simply generating more sales activity. It was understanding whether the commercial operating model, sales processes, leadership disciplines, customer growth strategies, and execution capabilities were positioned to support that level of growth.
As organisations scale, complexity increases. Forecasting becomes more challenging, commercial accountability becomes less clear, customer growth opportunities become harder to identify, and execution consistency becomes more difficult to maintain. The leadership team wanted a clear understanding of where future improvements would create the greatest commercial impact — and what would be required to support sustainable growth at scale.
THE ApPROach
Creating clarity before creating change
Many organisations begin transformation programmes by deciding what to change. Littlefish chose a different approach — understanding how effectively the revenue engine was operating, and where future investment would create the greatest return, before committing time, money, and leadership attention.
Before investing significant resources into commercial transformation, the business wanted a clear, evidence-based understanding of how the revenue engine was performing.
Merlin5 worked alongside the leadership team to assess commercial maturity, evaluate sales effectiveness, understand growth constraints, and identify the areas most likely to influence future performance.
what we used
Growth Assessor™
Commercial Diagnostics
Leadership Interviews
Sales Effectiveness Reviews
Customer Feedback
Operational Assessments
Commercial Benchmarking
Revenue Performance Analysis
The objective was simple: understand what matters most before deciding what to change.
the solution
Understanding what was limiting growth
The assessment revealed a business with strong customer relationships, capable people, and significant growth potential. The opportunity was not fixing a broken organisation — it was improving how effectively the organisation could scale. The work identified opportunities across the revenue engine and, most importantly, which would create the greatest return.
Commercial visibility & effectiveness
Opportunities to improve reporting, forecasting confidence and performance visibility — alongside stronger sales execution, more consistent qualification, and better opportunity progression.
Leadership alignment & operating model
Opportunities to improve accountability, decision-making and operating rhythm across teams — and to make the commercial operating model more consistent, clearer, and more scalable.
Growth capacity & revenue performance
Opportunities to create more time for strategic selling, account development and proactive customer engagement — improving commercial performance through stronger execution and more effective operating disciplines.
the outcome
The outcome
The programme provided Littlefish with a stronger foundation for future growth — a practical roadmap rather than a list of recommendations, and the clarity to know where future investment would create the greatest commercial return.
01
Insight
A clear view of commercial maturity and the performance drivers most directly influencing growth, productivity and commercial performance — grounded in evidence, not assumptions.
02
Alignment
Stronger leadership alignment around priorities, opportunities and future operating requirements — with better prioritisation of where effort, investment and attention would create the greatest impact.
03
Scale
A framework for a more scalable revenue engine: improving sales effectiveness, commercial consistency, forecasting confidence and growth capability to support doubling the business.
Most importantly, Littlefish gained a clear understanding of what would be required to support its ambition of doubling the size of the business over three years.
Leadership perspective
In their own words
Could your revenue engine support the next stage of growth?
Merlin5 helps leadership teams understand what is slowing growth, identify where value is leaking, and focus on the actions that create the greatest commercial impact — building the foundations for scalable growth.
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