Product + operations for retail, digital commerce, and consumer brandsCosta Mesa, CA

For when the business outgrows the way it runs.

Full visibility, from order to cash.

I’m Blake Lawson. I’m the person you call when you’re stuck: orders that take too long, systems that don’t talk to each other, numbers nobody trusts. I work on the systems and on the operations around them: everything between a customer saying yes and the cash landing in your account.

Book a meeting or just email me
Blake Lawson, founder of FullViz

Blake LawsonFounder, FullViz. Keeper of the lighthouse.

ORDER-TO-CASH PROCESS (AS DOCUMENTED) as it actually runs FULL VISIBILITY ✦ ORDER TO CASH ✦ 01 QUOTE 02 ORDER 03 FULFILL 04 SHIP 05 INVOICE 06 CASH re-keyed by hand 3 systems. 0 agree. who owns this? “where’s my order?” finance finds out here the point. returns (they happen) FIG. 1 / NOT TO SCALE / NOT A DECK ORDER-TO-CASH PROCESS (AS DOCUMENTED) as it actually runs 01 QUOTE 02 ORDER 03 FULFILL 04 SHIP 05 INVOICE 06 CASH re-keyed by hand who owns this? finance finds out here the point.

In plain terms

What “quote to cash” means

It’s the trade’s name for everything between a customer saying yes and the money landing in your account.

  • If you run stores

    A purchase order becomes a shelf, a sale at the register, and sometimes a return at the service desk.

  • If you sell online

    A cart becomes a pick, a box, a doorstep, and sometimes a refund.

  • If you make the product

    A retailer’s purchase order becomes a production run, a truck, and an invoice that gets paid. Eventually.

Same flow every time. The places it gets stuck are different.

Symptoms

Sound familiar?

Four ways a business tells you it has outgrown the way it runs.

  • No. 1

    The order takes three weeks and nobody can tell you why.

    Everyone’s busy. But no system knows when the order is due, so nothing ties inventory or purchasing to the day it has to ship.

  • No. 2

    Three systems, three numbers.

    The storefront has one inventory count. The warehouse has another. The spreadsheet (there’s always a spreadsheet) has a third, and finance trusts none of them.

  • No. 3

    Sales are up and cash is tighter.

    You’re growing, so you’re buying more inventory and more ads to keep growing. But nobody can say which products make money once everything’s counted.

  • No. 4

    Peak is coming and the plan is to work harder.

    Marketing picked the promotion. The warehouse found out when the orders did. So did the carrier, and so did customer service.

If you nodded at two, keep reading. If you nodded at all four, you can skip to the calendar.

Method

How I work

No mystery to it. Four steps, in this order.

  1. Walk one order.

    I start by following a single order from quote to cash, through every system and every person that touches it. The org chart tells me how it’s supposed to work. The order tells me how it does.

  2. Agree on the numbers.

    Before anyone buys software, we settle what the words mean. Margin. In stock. On time. Customer acquisition cost. Most arguments about a system turn out to be arguments about a definition.

  3. Fix the smallest thing that unsticks it.

    Sometimes that’s an ERP or a warehouse system. Sometimes it’s a one-page procedure and a standing Tuesday meeting. I’ll tell you which, and I’ll tell you when the manual version is the better one.

  4. Build it, then hand it over.

    I write the requirements, work with your developers or bring some, set the thing up, and train the people who’ll run it. It should still work after I’ve left. That’s the test.

Proof

Receipts

Field-tested at Amazon, Target, SAP, Nuna Baby, and Gorjana.

FullViz, Costa Mesa CACustomer copy

  • 3 weeks to 7 days Order to delivery for a food and grocery business, after we rebuilt how a quote becomes cash.
  • about $19M a year Taken out of returns and packaging costs at Amazon’s try-before-you-buy program.
  • 50% fewer “Where is my order?” escalations at Gorjana, year over year, through the holidays.

Three line itemsRead how it happened

A pattern

Returns keep finding me

About one dollar in six of retail sales comes back, and nearly one in five online. Somebody has to manage the sunk cost of every return.

  • Amazon, Prime Wardrobe

    I owned return performance and cost. A drop-off went from $4.50 to $1.20, and NPS rose about two points.

  • SAP

    I led product development for Intelligent Returns, the first product the retail cloud line shipped.

  • Gorjana

    I automated the returns flow in the warehouse system. Fewer customers had to follow up with customer care about a return.

Read the returns notes

Return rates: National Retail Federation and Happy Returns, 2025.

Recent work

Fresh from the field

  • 1 to 2Product and systems · Fulfillment and operations

    Three weeks to seven days

    Order to delivery went from about three weeks to seven days.

    Client work · Food and grocery

  • 0 to 1Inventory and planning · Fulfillment and operations

    Four hubs, forty-five sites

    I owned the retail side of Amazon’s first multi-temperature grocery hubs.

    Amazon · Grocery

  • 1 to 2Returns and post-purchase · Fulfillment and operations

    The $4.50 return

    I owned return performance and cost. A drop-off went from $4.50 to $1.20.

    Amazon · Prime Wardrobe

All field notes

Fair warning

Who this isn’t for

Companies that want a deck, not a change.

I spent six years at a company that banned slides from its meetings. I’ve since come to realize that people like a nice slide here and there, and I’m happy to accommodate. It’s about what the slide communicates, not how it looks. But if the presentation is the deliverable, there are firms with better templates than mine.

Marketing and channel strategy are outside my lane too. I’ll stay in mine: product, tech, and operations, from quote to cash.

DECKS OPTIONAL ✦ CHANGE ISN’T ✦

Stuck somewhere between order and cash?

Bring the messiest part. That’s usually where I’d start anyway.

Book a meeting Email me Follow me on LinkedIn

I’ll tell you plainly if I’m the wrong person for it.