Breakneck growth in any industry is both intensely rewarding and downright exhausting. Either way, it`s risky.
The four years before 2001 were characterised by huge IT empires built in a fraction of the time that traditional businesses had taken to reach the same heights. Let`s consider where the wheels fall off for fast-growth companies offering services that rely heavily on intellectual property (apart from a lack of profit).
The first problem is management hierarchy. Clients and staff want to deal with decision-makers, who are so overburdened and stretched that they ultimately run out of bandwidth. These decision-makers can choose to limit their time and energies to high-impact tasks, but they can only handle so much. How do they remain close, delegate, and still keep the big picture in perspective?
The second problem follows closely behind. If you don`t continue to spend time with your clients and staff, they will move elsewhere.
The third problem is introducing processes designed to improve internal operations so as to help companies cope with their growth. However, most intelligent and dynamic people seem allergic to a formalised routine that involves strict adherence to a prescribed formula.
The answers are hardly simple! If they were, we would all enjoy breakneck growth and huge profits through being first to market.
It is tempting for management hierarchies to implement and introduce complex communication structures. However, they hamstring the business and create an impersonal business environment. You ignore clients and staff at your peril, and internal processes and procedures are only helpful when they exist for a very specific purpose.
One solution is to work through a series of steps, ensuring you keep your focus on what really matters.
Firstly, identify the top three or four fundamental requirements that keep your business alive. This changes as the business grows. My IT services industry experience suggests that cash, revenue, clients, and personnel are all equally important, but they have different priorities at different times of the year. Methodologies, approaches, and procedures evolve, in time, as the business demands them.
The simple answer is to employ the right people for the right job. A real irony in an environment characterised by high salaries and low fixed costs is that directors delegate the hiring process to people who have never been involved in delivering the services the candidates will soon be expected to implement. This is where many fast-growth problems start.
As long as you:
* Provide a flow of new business opportunities (by hiring the right new business development people);
* Deliver high-quality solutions using a consistent process (designed, developed and evolved by the right delivery people);
* Wrap the business with a caring and responsive environment (created by the directors of the business); and
* Ensure cash flow, future revenue, and profitability prospects are solid (again, the responsibility of the directors of the business).
Then fast growth is possible while retaining a professional, service-oriented, and generally happy organisation.
Assigning clear ownership that is reinforced as often as possible helps avoid management layers, clients and staff require limited attention on a regular basis, and internal processes must be identified, implemented, and evolved by the professionals who need them.
This then is a business that is managed by everyone, each taking ownership of problems when they arise, rather than creating a new problem to share with the rest of the team.
The model can be scaled to fit a larger organisation, but ultimately, every organisation can make the choice and ask the question: Do we want to be the biggest, or just the best?
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