What if Santa brought in some consultants?

Memo from: Bognor Consulting Group.

To: Santa Claus, North Pole HA, Lapland.

Thanks for asking us to have a look at your business model. Our staff have now recovered from their frostbite and have a number of significant suggestions for a revamp before next year.

First, the brand name. The business seems to use several different monikers, including St. Nicholas, Santa Claus and Father Christmas. We suggest settling on one of the three. Father Christmas is clearly paternalistic and gender-biased. St. Nicholas is too overtly religious. Santa Claus is a much more inclusive term.

Once trademarked, there is a ton of money to be made from merchandising rights, particularly from greeting-card companies and department stores. Frankly, your intellectual property is an underused resource.

Making better use of it could help address your most glaring challenge: the lack of any revenue stream. Mince pies, carrots and glasses of brandy are not a sound basis of remuneration for a multinational organization. And who pays for the raw materials needed to make the presents? Given the lack of paperwork about your funding, we are surprised that the authorities have not launched an investigation into money-laundering.

Next, the distribution system. We admit you have an excellent record to date. However, in attempting to deliver millions of presents from a single point over the course of one night, you have been flying by the seat of your sled.

Outsourcing is the obvious answer. Amazon, Fed Ex and UPS would do the job just as efficiently. If the chimney-delivery route is still preferred, then small drones may be the answer.

Now let us turn to working conditions. Basing your operation at the North Pole exposes your workers both to extreme cold and, thanks to climate change, melting ice. It is a health-and-safety (or should that be elf-and-safety) nightmare. As with distribution, the operation could be outsourced. The elves could be retrained, perhaps as shoemakers.

Our team was also very concerned about animal welfare. Asking reindeer to fly around the world in one night, pulling a heavy load, must put an enormous strain on their physiques. One of the reindeer has a very shiny nose and we recommend immediate veterinary attention.

The next issue is data protection. You tell us you have a "list" which records whether children are "naughty or nice." We are afraid that checking it twice is simply not an adequate safeguard. Even keeping the list is a breach of data-protection rules around the planet. And how are the data compiled? The fact that you see children when they are sleeping, and know when they are awake, suggests surveillance on an Orwellian scale. This must be stopped immediately. If you insist on pre-gift monitoring, simply look at the children's Snapchat accounts.

We are also worried about succession planning. No insult intended but the white beard suggests you are past retirement age and your rotund physique does not bode well for your health. You need to hire a graduate, preferably from an Ivy League college such as Yule University.

The good news is that you do live up to many of the precepts of modern business theory. Just-in-time delivery, a flat management structure and a purpose-driven ethos are all things we recommend to other clients.

Finally, we need to talk about the terms of our bill. Our expenses were considerable; have you seen the price of a first-class seat on Lapland Airways? Your offer of a train set and slippers was very kind, but we prefer a bank transfer. Mind you, if you could drop a hassle-free Brexit solution down the chimney, the people of Britain would be very grateful. And a fix for the stock markets should satisfy the rest of the world.