Noise Institute operational cost diagnostics

Show the cost your reports miss.

Q: How much time does this take from my team?

Usually four to six calendar weeks, depending on response volume, interview scope and data access. Your team contributes a short survey, real workflow walk-throughs and leadership interviews.

Q: Does ONI work if we run several countries and systems?

Yes. ONI compares cost mechanisms across units instead of pretending every country and team works the same way.

For service and operational companies where a simple decision waits for days, work comes back for the third time, and the same point returns in the next meeting. This is usually not a people problem. It is a work system that has started to slow the result.

Why Noise Institute Built for companies growing faster than their way of working.

We do not judge people and we do not sell another list of improvements. We show where the work system takes time, money and ownership before the company spends a bigger budget on change, AI or automation.

ONI Operational Noise Index

Score 0-100: where work loses time, money and ownership.

Book diagnostic call See example result

After diagnosis, you know:

01Where cost startsNot only where the symptom appears.

02What you pay for twiceRework, returns and missing inputs.

03What to change firstOne decision instead of a wish list.

What ONI shows

Which problems take the most time and money before they hit the result.

Decisions stallThe customer waits because no one knows who can say yes.

Work returnsYou pay twice for missing agreements.

Meetings growPeople talk, but work still does not produce the result.

Method

ONI in plain terms

ONI measures operational noise: places where the company does a lot of work, but the result does not move forward. Waiting, rework, clarification and ownerless decisions become a 0-100 score.

This is not about judging people. It is about showing where the work system takes time and money before that cost appears in a standard report.

Measure where work stalls, returns or starts with missing inputs.

We look at the real path of work, not only declarations.

Check a survey, interviews and one concrete path from start to finish.

This is enough to separate the symptom from the source of cost.

Deliver a score, a cost map and the first decision to make.

The buyer knows what to move now and what not to touch.

Definition Operational noise is the cost of waiting, rework and incomplete agreements.

Score ONI 0-100 shows the scale of the problem and where to start.

Decision After diagnosis, it is clear what to change first and who owns it.

Before AI and automation

Do not accelerate a process when you do not know the source of the problem.

If decisions stall, data starts with gaps and ownership disappears between teams, AI can accelerate the same chaos. ONI shows what needs to be clarified before the company spends budget on automation.

First the sourcewhether the issue is decisions, missing inputs, handoffs or exceptions.
Then the decisionwhat can be automated and what cannot move without an owner.
No wasted budgettechnology should fix work, not repeat mistakes faster.

Decisions

Who has to say yes before work moves? Where does the decision stall, return or go to another approval?

Handoffs

Where does ownership, context or responsibility disappear when work moves between people, teams or systems?

Rework and exceptions

What comes back because the start was incomplete, the rule is unclear or the exception became daily work?

Conversations without decisions

How many agreements end without an owner, deadline or next step?

Department interests

Where does a team protect its own scope instead of quickly closing cost for the customer or company?

Early warning

Do people raise risk early, or only when the cost has already hit the result?

Kamila Drygalska, founder of Noise Institute

Who stands behind it

ONI was built inside operations.

My name is Kamila Drygalska. For twenty years I led and improved operations in SSC, GBS and BPO environments across EMEA, including interim roles, where one case can pass through several teams, countries and systems before it reaches the customer. I kept seeing the same pattern: the report looked fine, while work was stuck, returning for correction or waiting for someone to decide.

ONI was built from that experience, not from theory. It is a method for measuring operational noise that I built, tested and improved in real organizations under performance pressure. Some company names are not public because of NDA boundaries. In one global financial group, I increased a key operating metric by 10 points in three months by changing how work moved, not by adding people. Today I do the same for other companies: with a number and a map instead of a feeling.

20 yearsEMEA operations: SSC, GBS, BPO

Practice-built methodtested in real organizations under pressure

Diagnostic, not a reportscore, map and first decision

Kamila's full professional profile - separate site

Sample case

They thought they needed fewer meetings. The report showed work was starting with missing inputs.

This example from a service process shows what the company pays for: not a list of problems, but the answer to where cost is really created and which decision should come first.

What they came with "We have too many meetings, decisions drag on and work keeps coming back for correction."

What we checked 3 work requests from sales to delivery start, plus conversations with sales, customer service, delivery and billing.

What came out Meetings were the effect of incomplete starts. The team patched gaps with calls and extra alignment.

Visible symptom

Meetings and calls kept growing.

Every week the team reconstructed what had been promised to the customer: scope, date, change cost, decision owner and acceptance rules.

True source

Delivery started incomplete.

Work moved forward as "ready", but confirmed scope, price, customer-side decision owner or acceptance criteria were missing.

Example from the report

One work request looked ready. It was not.

The system had customer data, date and service description. Several agreements were still missing, so the team could not start without asking again.

Missing confirmed price, scope boundary, decision owner, input materials, acceptance criteria and exception decision.

Effect delivery waited, the coordinator made 6 calls, and the customer received a later start date.

3 work requests traced from sales to delivery start

Not survey declarations, but the real path of work through sales, customer service, delivery and billing.

6 calls around one request to fill missing inputs

To sales, customer service and the customer-side decision owner before the team could start proper delivery.

1 day delay because start and clarification happened in parallel

First decision: define what "ready for delivery" means before work moves forward.

Sample report

The full example shows what the post-audit document looks like.

The report expands this case: ONI score, sources of cost, decision map, first recommendations and the scope of what is still unknown. The data is illustrative; the format shows the client-facing output.

Open sample report

Engagements

Budget should buy a decision, not a report.

Pricing is visible because this is an investment in recovered time, margin and leadership capacity. Diagnose first. Reduce only where cost and payback are clear enough to defend.

Why pay To identify cost that can actually be removed.

Not for slides. For a decision on whether the issue is material and where reduction has the strongest return.

What you get ONI score, decision maps and action sequence.

Material that lets the COO, CFO and board discuss numbers, not impressions.

How budget stands up Time, margin, risk and ROI in one view.

The reduction scope follows business impact, not a process wish list.

01 — Diagnose

Diagnostic Audit

Best when you need to know whether the issue deserves budget: what it may cost, where it is created and what decision the board should make.

Single-case check 7-10 days

PLN 6-9k

SMEs / teams 10-80 FTE

→1 real case that stalls, comes back or needs too many conversations
→Short pulse survey for people involved in the case
→2-3 interviews with people seeing the issue from different sides
→Decision: run full ONI, fix one thing or stop the topic

Light 4-5 weeks

PLN 12–18k

SMEs / operations 30-200 FTE

→Survey on calibrated 25 items
→1 critical sales, service or operational workflow mapped
→3 leadership interviews
→ONI score + 3 decisions with a business rationale

Most chosen

Standard 5-6 weeks

PLN 20–40k

Operations 200–1000 FTE

→Survey + 50+ respondents
→2–3 workflows mapped
→5–8 leadership interviews
→Decision Flow + Handoff Friction maps
→Reduction roadmap ranked by cost, risk and ROI

Enterprise 6-8 weeks

PLN 45–90k

Operations 1000+ FTE

→Multi-unit ONI assessment
→Cross-region comparison
→10+ leadership interviews
→Board briefing: cost, risk, decision
→Tailored governance recommendations

02 — Reduce

Reduction Programs

For organizations that already have the evidence and want the result back: shorter decisions, less rework and lower management load in the places with the highest cost.

Process Simplification Sprint

PLN 25–70k

4–6 weeks

Remove redundant steps, exceptions and rework loops that slow 1-2 critical workflows. Outcome: fewer returns and faster closure.

Decision Flow Fix

PLN 40–120k

8–12 weeks

Restructure approval layers, escalation paths and boundary ownership. Outcome: shorter decisions and less work returning for correction.

NoiseCut Program

PLN 60–150k

12–20 weeks

Reduction across 3+ dimensions. Diagnostic-led, implemented and measured. Target: identify and reduce the highest ONI drivers, with impact shown in numbers.

03 — Monitor

Index Monitoring

PLN 8–25k / year

Semi-annual or annual

Track ONI over 6 or 12 months. Detect friction drift before it compounds. Quarterly briefings, structural change alerts.

04 — Equip

Leadership Workshop

PLN 6–18k

1–2 days · in-person or remote

Translate ONI into a shared language of decisions, cost and accountability for operating leaders.

Start with a scoped diagnostic conversation

Bring one workflow where the result depends on decisions by many people.

In 30 minutes we check whether the issue has scale, whether it can be measured and whether ONI makes sense as an investment.

Request scoping call

All ranges in PLN, exclusive of VAT. Final scope and pricing depend on organization size, geographic complexity and access required. Quoted on a per-engagement basis after a 30-minute scoping call.

FAQ

Questions a serious buyer would ask

How do I know this will not become another report?

The scope ends with a decision: where the cost sits, what should be reduced first and what business effect is realistic. The report carries the decision. It is not the product.

How do you calculate ROI if the problem is hidden?

We combine survey data, workflow mapping and leadership interviews. We estimate the cost of delay, rework and coordination time, then rank actions by impact on results.

What do I actually receive after the diagnostic?

A 0-100 ONI score, six sub-scores, a decision map, a handoff map, ranked reduction priorities and an executive briefing: cost, risk and the recommended decision.

How much time does this take from my team?

Usually 4-6 calendar weeks for a Light or Standard diagnostic, depending on response volume, interview scope and data access. Your team contributes a short survey, a few real workflow walk-throughs and leadership interviews. The work is designed to measure overhead, not create more of it.

Will people answer honestly if the topic touches leadership decisions?

Survey results are aggregated and comments are not reported in a way that identifies individuals. We ask about cost mechanisms, not blame. Without that, the data would be useless.

Does ONI make sense outside large SSC or GBS environments?

Yes, if the company has repeatable processes, several roles in one workflow and hidden cost in decisions, handoffs or rework. The scope is adjusted to the organization scale: from one critical SME workflow to a multi-unit comparison.

Does ONI work if we run several countries and systems?

Yes. That is one of the strongest use cases. ONI compares cost mechanisms across units instead of pretending every country and team works the same way.

How are you different from Big Four or continuous improvement teams?

We do not begin with a transformation agenda or a catalogue of improvements. We first test where the cost is created and whether reduction has a return. If the issue is not material, the recommendation can be no larger programme.

What happens after the diagnostic?

We either stop at the board decision or move into reduction: simplifying process, shortening decision paths, cutting rework or monitoring ONI after the change.