What QofE Won't Tell You: $3.8M in Hidden GP Variance Across a 4-Store Campus

I recently completed an operational assessment of a four-location campus within a larger dealership group. Same market, same traffic patterns, same demographics, shared infrastructure. On paper, these stores should perform within a fairly tight band. The financials looked normal. QofE would have passed clean. Operational diligence found $3.8M in annual gross profit variance driven entirely by process inconsistency; not market conditions, not brand mix, not location. The gap between the best and worst performing store on identical metrics was 41% in one department and 39% in another. These aren't marginal differences. They're structural. The recovery required a $361K implementation investment. Monte Carlo simulation across 10,000 iterations showed 100% probability of positive Year 1 return. Break-even required only a 9.5% capture rate against the identified opportunity. None of this appeared in the financial statements. The revenue was real. The expenses were accurately reported. The business was simply leaving $3.8M a year on the table through operational variance that no financial audit would surface. For anyone evaluating multi-unit acquisitions (especially rollups where you're buying operational consistency you assume exists) this is the gap between what the books show and what the business actually does. Happy to discuss methodology if anyone's interested.