Fine tuning is second nature to Nigel Davies, from the car industry to the pitches and boardrooms of rugby clubs.
Gloucester's rugby director explains how business acumen is just as vital in coaching as in any other walk of life.
TROUBLESHOOTING was Nigel Davies' speciality, long before rugby became a viable career.
No wonder the Gloucester brief appealed to him.
Looking out across the Severn Bridge, the Llanelli Scarlets boss saw a club boasting all the raw parts but lacking the right assembly.
The loyal hometown club man wanted a new challenge – and re-igniting the Kingsholm spark was it.
If his impressive Cherry and Whites start has looked like water off a duck's back, the unruffled new Gloucester boss will cite his CV as proof he has worked long and hard to gather the required credentials for Kingsholm success.
But when he shows you that resume he might just bypass the rugby achievements first, in favour of an impressive business background.
The mechanical engineering graduate spent 12 years as a management consultant – eight of those self-employed.
Scrutinising business quality, Davies would help organisations build or tweak systems to boost productivity and instil a sequence of solid progress.
That is exactly what he has done at Gloucester.
"I graduated in mechanical engineering from the University of Wales at Pontypridd and then worked for a large automotive company called Value," Davies explained. "They were the fifth-largest automotive suppliers in the world, a French-based company, with a factory in Ammanford near Llanelli.
"I started a graduate training programme there and eventually ended up as a quality engineering manager for the factory, which had about 1,500 people working there.
"That was really parallel to my rugby career.
"When I left there I went into management consultancy for 12 years, and I was self-employed for eight years.
"It was a lot of small-medium enterprises but also some multi-national companies as well.
"I worked with automotive businesses, local authorities, local businesses employing five to 600 people, and businesses employing 20 people, so I had a broad spectrum of work.
"And I worked a lot in England at the time too.
"I would specialise in quality management, how the businesses could set up systems and procedures, and training to ensure the quality of their service and product was as good as it could be and was continually looked at to ensure continued improvement.
"When the game went professional it didn't make much difference to most of us. At that stage for most of us it was too late to make a career out of it, so we had to maintain our career status.
"So the coaching really cut across that. When I started becoming a full-time coach, that's when my business career had to stop.
"I was happy to make the change, only because it's something I love doing, but to begin with I had to take a considerable pay cut!"
Davies has a clear aptitude for man management.
The former Wales centre is breeding confidence through every squad player, placing great faith in all his charges in the simplest manner – trusting them all through selection.
The dividend is clear in Gloucester's eight-game unbeaten streak, but Davies admits there is plenty of graft ahead.
He continued: "That business experience has been essential really: this job is all about managing people.
"In rugby it's no different from any other business.
"Whether you're managing people to produce widgets, produce a profitable business or to win rugby matches, the processes are very similar.
"My job is to manage this group to be successful in rugby, and it's no different from any other business, apart from we deal in rugby.
"The rugby business is extremely complex, it's like no other business, and if you're in the business you have to be able to cover quite a lot of areas.
"Dealing with the board, dealing with agents, players, coaching staff, it's just huge really. There's such a broad spectrum to it.
"I said a couple of years ago at the Scarlets that only about ten per cent of my time was spent on the training field, but I don't think people really understood what I meant.
"I wasn't saying that I spent little time on the training field – I spend a lot of time on the training field – but there's a lot more that goes on than just that.
"That's the tip of the iceberg in terms of managing a rugby business.
"I'm thoroughly enjoying it: I'm a firm believer that once you make a decision you just go with it and never look back.
"I've been fortunate to arrive in an environment which I think is very good, and there's some good people here.
"As I said all along, Gloucester seemed to have a lot of the ingredients in place before I came here.
"It was important that we started strongly, very important: it just adds a lot of credence to what we've been doing, and the players can buy into it a lot more easily.
"Momentum is a big thing in sport, hopefully we can hold onto it."
â Every Gloucester player will have a one-to-one coaching review in the next fortnight.
Nigel Davies and his coaching team reviewed Gloucester's first six matches, with each coach making a presentation to the rest of the management group.
Gloucester's rugby director said the Kingsholm coaches have made adjustments off the back of that – and now they will filter that process through to the playing squad.
EVERY PLAYER NEEDS A WILL TO IMPROVE GAME EVERY Gloucester player will have a one-to-one coaching review in the next fortnight. Nigel Davies and his coaching team reviewed Gloucester's first six matches, with each coach making a presentation to the rest of the management group. Gloucester's rugby director said the Kingsholm coaches have made adjustments off the back of that – and now they will filter that process through to the playing squad. In-depth personal reviews will now be held with each player, and Cherry and Whites boss Davies hopes the outcome will only help his charges cement early-season improvements. Davies does not want any ponderous debriefs though – he wants points made, and swift action taken. He explained: "That's going to happen in the next couple of weeks after the Harlequins game. "We reviewed our performances as coaches from the first block of six games, and we've then refocused ourselves, and part of that process was to look at certain individual performances in that period. "And we'll go through those with each player now over the next couple of weeks. "We've got to be very careful because it can be a very time-consuming process, but we want to make it pretty sharp, snappy and to the point. "And then it allows players to react and move on from where they are, and hopefully improve themselves. "Every improvement we make to each individual player has a direct effect on how the side performs." If Davies' business savvy has taught him anything it is that ambitious employees who cannot see progression do not accept stalled careers – they leave. And the former Llanelli centre is not about to let any of his players stagnate. "This business more than any other is a people business: our job as coaches is to improve each and every player to their potential. "We can only do that through clear lines of communication and in a progressive environment, that I hope we've created that now."