Imagine this: A fresh biochemistry graduate is at the intersection of potentiality, his thoughts racing with molecular frameworks, but fate writes another recipe altogether. While colleagues fight for lab jobs, he sets off on an American sojourn, then swaps his degree for construction shoes. None of them suspects that this unplanned deviation is mixing in the ingredients for operational excellence.
In boardrooms around the world, CEOs struggle with an age-old conundrum: How do you turn around a struggling business into a money-making machine? How do you turn a company that’s dead last and move it to the number one spot within months? The answers usually reside within the minds of leaders who refuse to think conventionally, who notice opportunity where others note only difficulties, and who know the secret ingredient isn’t merely technology- it’s people.
The operations and manufacturing excellence space is constantly changing, with leaders looking for new ways to improve efficiency, eliminate waste, and improve customer satisfaction using tested methods. The most effective transformations today take place in dialogue among managers and machine operators, in the instant when someone utters the potent question: “What’s stopping you?”
Contemporary business alchemy occurs when practitioners of operational excellence merge scientific accuracy with human insight, mix experience with novelty, and recognize that any failing system is just a successful system in waiting to be unlocked. The leaders use digital technology and artificial intelligence as catalysts for human capability and not as substitutes.
The most successful changes occur when humans are motivated, processes are streamlined, and technology supports human ingenuity. Success stories come from leaders who realize that true change requires a deep transformation of the way organizations think, act, and grow together.
Ian Nicholls represents a unique breed of business leaders whose journey began with genuine intellectual curiosity rather than career ambition. He graduated from University College London with an Honours Degree in Biochemistry, pursuing the subject because it genuinely fascinated him. ForIan Nicholls, university was not just about securing future employment. It was an intellectual pursuit that he treated like an academic hobby for three years.
After graduation,Ian Nicholls took an unconventional path. He toured the United States and worked on building sites upon his return. However, parental pressure about his education “going to waste” motivated him to seek a career. This encouraged him to consider practical applications for his biochemistry degree, focusing on food, drug, or drink industries.
Nicholls chose to start with the food industry, saving drugs and drinks for later in his career. This decision proved prophetic as he eventually worked in pharmaceuticals and brewing. His career began at Rank Hovis McDougall, which later became Premier Brands, where he worked as a Production Supervisor in canning and bottling operations.
Building Expertise Across Disciplines
His next career move took him to Mars confectionery, where he undertook positions across multiple disciplines. At Mars, he gained experience in manufacturing, marketing, human resources, industrial engineering, new product development, and site services. This diverse exposure created an excellent foundation for his future leadership roles and provided him with a comprehensive understanding of business operations from multiple perspectives.
The breadth of experience at Mars proved invaluable for Nicholls’ development as a leader. Rather than specializing in a single area, he learned how different business functions interconnect and influence each other. This holistic understanding would later become a cornerstone of his consulting approach, where he helps organizations see beyond departmental silos to create integrated solutions.
The Turnaround Specialist Emerges
Nicholls’ reputation as a turnaround specialist began when he was headhunted to become Operations Director with a Danish meat cooperative. The organization had been experiencing losses for several years, but Nicholls converted it from loss-making to profitable in just nine months. This success demonstrated his ability to quickly identify operational inefficiencies and implement effective solutions.
His success in Denmark led to another headhunting opportunity with Associated British Foods, where he became a Chief Executive. He inherited a company that ranked 42nd out of 44 in profit generation within the organization. Within seven months, Nicholls had transformed it into the number one profit earner and maintained that position for three years before transitioning into consultancy.
Nicholls notes that his path to CEO was unusual for the time, as most chief executives came from sales or finance backgrounds rather than manufacturing. However, he had developed a particular talent for solving manufacturing problems, including machine downtime, quality issues, scrap, and waste. His ability to turn poorly performing operations into profitable ones set him apart from his contemporaries.
The Shelf-Life Philosophy
Nicholls describes his career progression using an interesting perspective- he followed his career “in reverse” based on product shelf life. He started with canning and bottling, which creates shelf lives measured in years. He then moved to confectionery with maximum shelf lives of nine months, followed by fresh and chilled meats lasting only days, and eventually bread with shelf lives of just a couple of days.
This progression taught him that shorter shelf lives create increasingly frenetic supply activities and demand more agile and responsive supply chains.
Each industry presented unique operational challenges that required different approaches to efficiency and waste reduction. This experience across various time-sensitive operations provided him with insights into how urgency affects operational design and employee behaviour.
Founding Explic8: A Collaborative Vision
Nicholls co-founded Explic8 with Al Friedle and Niall Murray. He had worked with Al Friedle around the world for many years, and they met Niall while working for a medical device company in Germany. When Niall expressed interest in working with them on Lean Manufacturing projects,Ian Nicholls asked his favourite strategic question: “What’s stopping you?” The three partners conducted a feasibility study and risk assessment before deciding to start Explic8. The company name comes from “explicate,” a verb meaning to give detailed explanations. This reflects what they provide to their clients. The partners were like-minded thinkers with extensive consultancy experience, making it logical to pool their resources. They started as equal directors, with Ian Nicholls later being elected as CEO.
The timing of their launch in September 2019 proved challenging, occurring just six months before COVID lockdown. Despite hitting their sales targets for the first six months, the pandemic brought six months of no income. However, the company survived and continues to grow.
Leadership Philosophy: Working With, Not For
Nicholls describes his leadership style as “consensual.” Although he serves as CEO, he emphasizes that no one works “for” him- everyone works “with” him. This philosophy extends to client relationships, where the focus is on solving problems and building teams. His approach has evolved with experience but has always maintained these collaborative principles.
His leadership philosophy was shaped by early experiences, including becoming the youngest Production Shift Manager at Mars at age 22. He managed Fred, who had been running the same machines for 25 years without taking a day off. Fred had operated those machines longer than Ian Nicholls had been alive, creating a daunting management challenge for the young supervisor.
This experience taught Nicholls to listen to wisdom and experience while helping team members solve their problems. Fred often guided decisions, telling Ian Nicholls what resources were needed. This taught him that a manager’s role is to remove obstacles that prevent teams from performing effectively. The approach requires listening to team concerns and helping solve challenges, which nurtures employee involvement and empowerment. While Ian Nicholls maintains final decision-making authority, he involves people affected by decisions in the decision-making process whenever possible. This inclusive approach builds buy-in and ensures that decisions consider practical implementation challenges.
Core Principles: Voice of Customer and Employee Involvement
Nicholls emphasizes that improvement efforts must focus on enhancing customer satisfaction. He questions activities in transformation plans that don’t relate to this goal, asking “Why are we doing this?” He believes that Voice of Customer (VoC) is crucial for understanding customer needs, making meaningful improvements, and enhancing satisfaction for both external and internal customers.
Internal customers, employees, represent a critical focus area. Ian Nicholls believes all employees, regardless of position, should contribute improvement ideas. Engaging the workforce fosters ownership and accountability cultures. He passionately advocates for engaging experts- the people who perform jobs daily and understand processes, problems, failures, workarounds, and often solutions.
His philosophy involves listening to in-house experts and recording their ideas to demonstrate they are heard and respected. This creates the foundation for a culture of respect. He works with experts to implement their ideas, regardless of initial quality. If ideas don’t work initially, employees take ownership to make them work, creating a culture of continuous improvement.
Ian Nicholls defines innovation in operational excellence as continuous improvement and enhancement of processes, systems, and practices that create more efficient operations. Innovation involves adopting new ideas, technologies, and methods to streamline workflows, reduce waste, and improve quality.
Transformation Challenges
He addresses the reality that 90% of change initiatives fail, attributing failure to three main factors. First, a lack of senior management commitment kills initiatives. Senior management teams must commit wholeheartedly to objectives. Explic8 overcomes this through careful senior stakeholder involvement and management.
Second, changing business priorities creates challenges. Priorities shift monthly between cost savings, revenue generation, output, and quality. Explic8 addresses this by continuously focusing on Voice of Customer as their guiding principle.
Third, siloed organizations create conflicting departmental objectives. Product lifecycle processes run through all business silos, so Explic8 builds cross-functional teams with representatives from each functional area the process touches. This creates realistic internal customer/supplier relationship models where the next person in the process is your customer, and the previous person is your supplier, trying to improve customer experience.
Future Trends and Industry Evolution
Nicholls identifies several dominant trends shaping operational excellence. He sees accelerating adoption of digital technologies bringing AI-driven enhancements integrated with hybrid methodologies like Agile and Lean. While these tools have existed for years, fundamental principles remain the same- satisfy customers faster, smarter, and cheaper.
Data and predictive analytics provide greater insights, scenario planning, and proactive decision-making. Companies are taking sustainability and social responsibility more seriously, adopting circular economy models, investing in renewable energy, and innovating with biodegradable packaging. These trends align with growing consumer and regulatory expectations.
Increasing digitalization makes cybersecurity a strategic imperative for operational resilience, fraud detection, and regulatory compliance. Intelligent Automation (IA) grows alongside Artificial Intelligence to remove repetitive tasks, increasing employee satisfaction while reducing transaction costs.
Human-Centric Process Design prioritizes user experience by integrating Voice of Customer and Voice of Process. This drives workforce transformation through continuous learning and digital upskilling, as operational excellence depends on skilled, engaged workforces.
Explic8’s Approach and Value Proposition
At Explic8, Ian Nicholls and his team listen to client aspirations and help achieve growth objectives while providing foundations for lasting growth. They solve complex transformation challenges related to strategy, benchmarking against industry best practices, and implementation through organizational design, process re-engineering, performance improvement, and technology implementation.
Their approach involves engaging deeply with clients to understand business challenges and working as collaborative partners to solve them. They build sustainable, continuous improvement environments where people are engaged and empowered. Rather than claiming expertise in client businesses, they bring specialist knowledge and industry best practices, combining these with client expertise and improvement desires to create winning combinations.
Essential Leadership Qualities
Nicholls identifies five essential qualities for operational excellence leaders. They are as follows:
- Focus on Voice of Customer for both internal and external customers.
- Maintain a clear vision of future business that teams want to join and support.
- Demonstrate excellent communication skills to ensure that vision and progress are clearly communicated and understood.
- Show unwavering commitment and dedication to achieving the vision.
- Engage and empower all employees, recognizing that businesses cannot succeed without them.
These principles reflect his collaborative leadership philosophy and emphasis on human-centered approaches to business transformation.
Nicholls’ journey from a curious biochemistry student to a successful CEO and consultant demonstrates how diverse experiences, collaborative leadership, and focus on customer satisfaction create lasting business success. His approach proves that sustainable transformation requires engaging people, optimizing processes, and maintaining a clear focus on customer value creation.