Cost-to-serve redesign: Time-driven activity cost baseline and claim grading

Executive summary

A method for finding what it actually costs to serve each customer and order, before anyone redesigns service levels, prices, or channels.

What is inside

What the baseline diagnostic covers

The asset walks a diagnostic lead through mapping service activities, building time equations from observed work, costing orders, deliveries, and tickets, rolling costs up to customers, computing service margin, grading the claims in circulation, and signing off a baseline. It ends with a diagnostic questionnaire, an evidence inventory, and a sign-off checklist.

Why revenue-based allocations hide cost to serve
Mapping service activities into cost pools
Time equations and capacity cost rates
Cost per order, per drop, per ticket, and per customer
Service margin by customer tier and order size
Grading claims about profitable and unprofitable customers
An evidence inventory and baseline sign-off

How to use it

How teams use it

Teams use it when margins erode while revenue holds, or when leaders disagree about which customers make money. Finance, operations, logistics, and customer service run it over four weeks; the CFO signs the baseline the rest of the pathway uses.

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advisory@velorstrategy.com · stratenity.com · Contact us

Stratenity Advisory Team. (2026). Cost-to-serve redesign: Time-driven activity cost baseline and claim grading. Stratenity Library. https://www.stratenity.com/resources/library/diagnostic-templates/cost-to-serve-redesign-time-driven-activity-cost-baseline-and-claim-grading

Stratenity Advisory Team. "Cost-to-serve redesign: Time-driven activity cost baseline and claim grading." Stratenity Library, 2026, www.stratenity.com/resources/library/diagnostic-templates/cost-to-serve-redesign-time-driven-activity-cost-baseline-and-claim-grading.

Stratenity Advisory Team. "Cost-to-serve redesign: Time-driven activity cost baseline and claim grading." Stratenity Library, 2026. https://www.stratenity.com/resources/library/diagnostic-templates/cost-to-serve-redesign-time-driven-activity-cost-baseline-and-claim-grading.

Stratenity Advisory Team (2026) Cost-to-serve redesign: Time-driven activity cost baseline and claim grading. Stratenity Library. Available at: https://www.stratenity.com/resources/library/diagnostic-templates/cost-to-serve-redesign-time-driven-activity-cost-baseline-and-claim-grading (Accessed: the date of access).

@misc{stratenity_stxr442, author = {{Stratenity Advisory Team}}, title = {Cost-to-serve redesign: Time-driven activity cost baseline and claim grading}, year = {2026}, publisher = {Stratenity Library}, howpublished = {\url{https://www.stratenity.com/resources/library/diagnostic-templates/cost-to-serve-redesign-time-driven-activity-cost-baseline-and-claim-grading}}, note = {Asset ID STX-R442} }

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Cost-to-serve redesign: Time-driven activity cost baseline and claim grading

What the baseline diagnostic covers

This is a taste. The full library goes deeper.

Stratenity is the AI Operating System for Strategic Execution™.

Stratenity is the AI Operating System for Strategic Execution^™.