Torque Precision Auto Business Plan — Management and Governance

The team at maturity, why the workshop manager is the single most important hire, and the operating leverage that carries the margin.

Management and Governance

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Role

Number at maturity

Responsibility

Timing

Managing director

1

Strategy, funding, fleet and insurer relationships, supplier terms

From inception

Workshop manager

1

Diary, job allocation, quality control, technician efficiency, rework

Month 1 — the single most important hire in the business

Service advisors

4

Customer intake, quoting, authorisation, handover, upsell discipline

From opening, scaling with bays

Qualified technicians

10

Diagnosis, service and repair to warranty standard

Phased with bay commissioning

Apprentices

3

Assisted work under supervision; the pipeline that solves technician scarcity

From Year 2, registered through merSETA

Parts controller

1

Stock, supplier terms, parts availability at the bay

Year 2

Bookkeeper and quality controller

2

Financial records, statutory returns; pre-release vehicle sign-off

From Month 1

Gross profit against overhead — the operating leverage
Figure 13. Gross profit against overhead — the operating leverage.

Year 1

Year 2

Year 3

Year 4

Year 5

Overhead, R

3 529 000

4 764 000

6 156 000

6 922 000

7 465 000

Overhead as a share of revenue

73.1%

42.6%

32.6%

28.9%

26.3%

Gross profit, R

1 390 000

4 388 000

8 262 000

10 728 000

12 988 000

Gross profit as a multiple of overhead

0.39x

0.92x

1.34x

1.55x

1.74x

Overhead falls from 73 per cent of revenue in Year 1 to 26 per cent by Year 5, and gross profit moves from 0.39 times overhead to 1.74 times. That is the operating leverage the whole plan depends on, and it comes from filling bays against a cost base — premises, service advisors, workshop manager, systems — that was already carried at four bays.

Three numbers govern this business and should be reported weekly rather than monthly: bay utilisation, technician efficiency against book time, and effective labour rate after leakage. A workshop that reports only turnover is measuring the wrong thing, because turnover can rise on parts while the labour business — where the profit is — deteriorates unnoticed.

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