For manufacturers and distributors
Find the problem. Design the fix. Build it right.
The Fractional Syndicate is a Houston-area operations advisory firm that finds what’s slowing manufacturers and distributors down and designs the fix, with fractional CIO leadership for companies that want ongoing help.
Senior help across sales, operations, accounting and IT, without the full-time hire or the big-firm price tag.
Three problems we get called about
Different companies, different words, nearly always one of these underneath.
Margins aren’t what they should be
You see the number at the end of the month. What you can’t see is which jobs, which customers and which products are dragging it down, so the fix is a guess. Pricing gets set off last year’s cost and a feel for the market.
Order to cash takes too long
The quote waits on one person. The order gets keyed in twice. Somebody walks a paper copy to the floor. Nobody can say where a given order is without asking three people, and the invoice goes out days after the truck did.
Something on the floor is always the bottleneck
One machine, one step, or one person everybody waits on. It moves around, so it never gets fixed, and the schedule gets rebuilt every morning to work around whatever it is this week.
Underneath all three is usually the same thing. The information exists somewhere in the building. It just isn’t where the decision gets made, at the moment it gets made.
What we fix
Each one arrives as its own problem. They usually turn out to be the same problem wearing different clothes.
Quote to cash
The order stops moving, gets keyed in twice, and the invoice goes out days after the truck did.
ERP data and reporting
The data is in Macola or Prophet 21. Getting a straight answer out of it is the hard part.
Margin and pricing analysis
Which orders, customers and products actually make money, while there’s still time to act on it.
AI data readiness
Clean, connected, trustworthy data, so AI gives you right answers instead of fast ones.
MSP transitions
Get control of the provider relationship, or get off it cleanly. Most clients keep theirs.
Fractional CIO leadership
Someone senior owning the plan, the vendors and the data, and accountable for the result.
How does it work?
Three steps. The first one is the one most people skip, and it’s the one that decides whether the rest is worth doing.
- We draw out the problem. We sit with you and your team and find what’s really slowing things down. It’s often not the thing you called about.
- We design the fix. In plain terms: what changes, what it costs, what you get back. You can read it without a translator.
- We build it. Through our sister company, Syndicate Systems, either on our platform or inside yours.
Two ways to own the fix
Same design either way. The only question is who keeps it running afterward.
We run it
It lives on our systems. We keep it working, you pay a monthly fee, and nobody on your payroll has to learn one more thing. No new headcount.
Your team runs it
We build it into your environment, write down how it works, and hand your team the keys. It’s yours. We’re available if you want us, not required.
We recommend what fits your business, including tools you already own. If you’d rather build it with your own team or your own vendor, do that. Most clients have us build it because we designed it. That’s a choice, not a condition.
We design it. Syndicate Systems builds it.
Two companies, one job each, so you never have to wonder who you’re talking to. We’re the doctor who makes the diagnosis and writes the plan. Syndicate Systems is the team that does the procedure.
The Fractional Syndicate
Sits with you, finds the real problem, and designs the fix. You get clarity and a plan you can act on, with or without us.
Syndicate Systems
Builds the thing and keeps it running, either on their platform or inside your environment, alongside your IT team.
One point of contact the whole way through. You don’t get handed off to a project manager you’ve never met.
Want to use AI? Start with your data.
AI is only as good as what you feed it. If your ERP, your spreadsheets and your other systems don’t agree, AI just gives you wrong answers faster.
Maybe you’re not sure where to start. Maybe you know exactly what needs to happen and nobody has the time to do it. Either way, we get your data clean, connected and trustworthy, so when you’re ready for AI it actually works.
Who do you work with?
Manufacturers and distributors, roughly $10M to $150M in revenue, running the business on an ERP.
- You run on an ERP. Macola, Prophet 21, or something like them. The data is in there. Getting an answer out of it is the hard part.
- Your IT team is small, or rebuilding. One person, a couple of people, or an MSP and nobody in the building.
- You make decisions yourself. Owner, president, COO. You don’t need a committee to say yes.
If you already have an IT manager
They stay. We’re not here to replace them, and we don’t take their work. Most IT managers we meet are carrying more than one person should. We take the projects off their plate, bring in help where it’s needed, and make sure they get credit for the result.
What this looks like in practice
A few problems we were handed, and what changed. Clients are described by industry until they tell us otherwise.
Nobody could say which orders made money
An industrial compression manufacturer. We rebuilt margin and pricing analysis so leadership can see what each order actually earns, instead of finding out at the end of the quarter.
Custom orders waited on one person’s memory
Same manufacturer. Build details lived on paper cards and in people’s heads. We digitized them and tied them to the ERP, so a custom order stops waiting on whoever remembers.
The MSP had quietly become IT
A manufacturer that wanted its own plan back. We guided the exit from its MSP and stood up an IT model with a clear owner inside the business.
The ERP wouldn’t answer questions
Hands-on work in Macola and Prophet 21, turning the data that was already there into reporting that answers what leadership actually asks.
Tell us what’s slowing you down.
We’ll tell you honestly whether we can help. If it’s not us, we’ll say so, and you’ll still leave the conversation with something worth doing.