Project Business Management
SERIES ARTICLE
By Oliver F. Lehmann
Munich, Germany
“Profit is not the purpose of a business, but rather the test of its validity.”
— Peter F. Drucker
Summary
NextWOW Systems looked like a success story on paper—booming with client projects, packed calendars, and growing revenue. But behind the scenes, profits were vanishing, teams were overloaded, and one delayed payment could have taken the whole company down. This is the real story of how a tech firm on the edge of burnout overhauled its project delivery, restructured its pricing and staffing strategies, and clawed its way back to profitability—not by working harder, but by finally running projects like a business. If you do Customer Projects and margins are slipping through your fingers, this is your wake-up call.
A Case Study: NextWOW’s Rise From Busy and Broke to Profitable and in Control[1]
NextWOW Systems[2] was doing everything right—or so it seemed.
They had clients lined up, teams fully booked, and a backlog of enterprise tech projects that stretched well into next quarter. Their developers were in high demand. Their work was solid. Their clients kept coming back. By all outward appearances, NextWOW was thriving.
But inside the company, the financials were telling a different story.
Despite a growing project portfolio, profit margins were sliding. The leadership team had started noticing cash flow tightening. Projects were being delivered, invoices sent—but the money in the bank didn’t match the effort on the floor. By the middle of the year, the red flags were unavoidable.
At a tense Q2 board review, the CFO laid it out flat:
“We’re growing revenue by 18%, and yet net profit is almost gone. We are too busy to breathe and barely break even.”
It was a sobering moment. The company wasn’t just inefficient—it was bleeding money through its projects. The leadership team finally asked the question they should have asked months ago:
Where exactly is our profit going?
More…
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Editor’s note: This series of articles is by Oliver Lehmann, author of the book “Project Business Management” (ISBN 9781138197503), published by Auerbach / Taylor & Francis in 2018. See author profile below.
How to cite this article: Lehmann, O. (2025). 7 Steps to Boost Profit Margins from Customer Projects, PM World Journal, Vol. XIV, Issue IV (April). Available online at http://pmworldlibrary.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/pmwj151-Apr2025-Lehmann-Boosting-Profit-Margins-in-Customer-Projects.pdf
About the Author
Oliver F. Lehmann
Munich, Germany
Oliver F. Lehmann, MSc, ACE, PMP, is a project management educator, author, consultant, and speaker. In addition, he is the owner of the website Project Business Foundation, a non-profit initiative for professionals and organizations involved in cross-corporate project business.
He studied Linguistics, Literature, and History at the University of Stuttgart and Project Management at the University of Liverpool, UK, where he holds a Master of Science Degree (with Merit). Oliver has trained thousands of project managers in Europe, the USA, and Asia in methodological project management, focusing on certification preparation. In addition, he is a visiting lecturer at the Technical University of Munich.
He has been a member and volunteer at PMI, the Project Management Institute, since 1998 and served as the President of the PMI Southern Germany Chapter from 2013 to 2018. Between 2004 and 2006, he contributed to PMI’s PM Network magazine, for which he provided a monthly editorial on page 1 called “Launch,” analyzing troubled projects around the world.
Oliver believes in three driving forces for personal improvement in project management: formal learning, experience, and observations. He resides in Munich, Bavaria, Germany, and can be contacted at oliver@oliverlehmann.com.
Oliver Lehmann is the author of the books:
- “Situational Project Management: The Dynamics of Success and Failure” (ISBN 9781498722612), published by Auerbach / Taylor & Francis in 2016
- “Project Business Management” (ISBN 9781138197503), published by Auerbach / Taylor & Francis in 2018.
His previous articles and papers for PM World Journal can be found here:
[1] Note: Project business is fundamentally different from internal project management (Lehmann, 2018).
[2] All names changed
