This is the work the desk was opened to do. You arrive with a series you already keep. We agree what it may fairly be set against. We return a study that says, in charts and in sentences, whether the number is high, low, or merely unlike the group people keep quoting at you.
Who it is for
The study suits a person who must answer a pointed question: is our occupancy weak for Imereti, or only weak beside the coast? Is our cost per litre high for a cooperative of this size, or high because last year’s harvest was thin? Is the waiting time at a municipal counter unusual among Kutaisi offices, or usual for the month after a rule change?
It does not suit a reader who wants a daily picture of operations, or who has not yet counted the thing they wish to compare.
What you receive
The bound note contains:
- a one-page reading in ordinary Georgian-office English, written for a board or a members’ meeting
- chart plates for each agreed metric, drawn so a neighbour of the series is visible
- a table of the raw comparison, with sources
- footnotes on breaks in the series, missing months, and any figure we refused to mix
- a short list of questions the charts cannot answer
You receive two paper copies and a correspondence file of the same pages. You do not receive a live picture of the numbers, nor a right to watch other clients’ series.
What we refuse
We will not place a Kutaisi guesthouse against a Batumi resort average and call it a benchmark. We will not fold a wine cooperative’s yield into a national litre figure that mixes table grapes with bottled exports. We will not treat last year’s own number as a benchmark unless you ask for a year-on-year reading and we mark it as such. A benchmark is a neighbour, not a mirror.
How the work proceeds
- Intake. You send the series, the years, and the question you need answered. We say within five working days whether a comparison can be drawn at all.
- Reference set. We propose a neighbour group — by size, by region, by season, by legal form — and you accept or reject it in writing. No drawing begins until that letter exists.
- Assembly. We gather the published and volunteered figures that belong in the set. Gaps are named, not filled with invention.
- Drawing. Charts and tables are prepared at the desk. A second reader checks that the axis, the base year, and the footnote agree with the intake letter.
- Delivery. The bound note is ready in three to six weeks from the day the figures were complete. A sitting to walk the pages is included if you come to Kutaisi; otherwise we send the note and hold a briefing by arrangement.
Duration and place
Desk work stays in Kutaisi. Site visits happen only when the figures cannot be understood from the papers — a cellar book that has never been transcribed, a night book kept in two hands. Those visits are priced separately.
Preparation
Send the series as you keep it. Spreadsheets, ledger photocopies, and Geostat tables are all acceptable. Name the person who can answer a query about a missing month. If a lender or a ministry will see the study, say so at intake so the tone of the reading matches the room.
Constraints
We work from figures that exist. If a neighbour series is unpublished, we will say so and either wait, use a thinner set, or decline. We do not forecast. We do not rank clients against one another in a shared league.
Fee
The fee is quoted after intake. Breadth of the reference group, number of metrics, and scarcity of published neighbours move the quote more than page count. Starting points sit on the fees page. A third of the quote is due when the reference set is agreed; the remainder when the bound note is ready.
Next step
Write to the desk with the series you hold and the question you need the neighbour to answer. If the figures cannot be compared, we will say that before any money is asked.