3 Keys to Smart Growth

Growing your business is exciting. It is also a time of great risk.

Your business can soar like a rocket, but just like a rocket it will plummet back to earth if it does not reach “escape velocity.” Is your company growing but struggling with challenges such as:

• Revenues rise, but margins shrink to dangerously small levels.
• Quality/customer satisfaction suffers as new employees struggle to learn your processes.
• Morale sinks because the corporate culture is constantly stressed.
• Long-service employees get frustrated and leave, taking their unique experience with them.
• Companies that you acquired don’t integrate; they continue to act as separate businesses.
• Supply chains falter due to your increased demand, causing you to fall short on customer commitments.
• Loyal, long-term customers decide to give your competitors a try because they feel taken for granted.

3 Keys to Achieving Escape Velocity

To overcome these challenges and can achieve sustainable growth, your leadership team must do three critical things:

1. Evaluate which growth opportunities are worth the risk.
2. Scale operations to meet higher demand without sacrificing quality or profitability.
3. Execute capacity-building projects while managing day-to-day operations.

Smart Growth: Opportunities and Risks

The chance to grow your company, serve more customers and enter new markets is enticing. However, with every opportunity comes risks. Do we have the financial resources to deliver at higher volume? Is the market opportunity durable or might the window of opportunity be too short for us to achieve sufficient return on investment? Can our existing ecosystem (suppliers, employees, culture, delivery mechanisms) support the new vision?

Answering these (and other) questions will also produce targeted tactics that protect your organization against the factors that could lead to an unsuccessful growth strategy and a costly return to Earth.

Smart Growth: Delivering the Goods

Your company has achieved its current levels of success due to years of delivering quality products/services and earning strong customer relationships. For many companies, maintaining those levels of quality and customer satisfaction is difficult when scaling up.

To assure your company “survives” the transition and thrives at higher sales levels, you must:

• Document and standardize your operations so that your “one true process” is accessible by all… rather than be in your top employee’s gray matter.
• Streamline and automate workflows to make it easier to handle more volume.
• Teach new employees how work should be done so there is no drop off in quality.
• Consistently measure the performance of your larger enterprise.

Smart Growth: Transitioning to the New Reality

There is an old business joke where a manager asks an employee, “Why are you running down the street pushing a bicycle?” The response: “I’m late. I don’t have time to get on the bike.”
During periods of rapid growth, new processes and technology tools can very much feel like the bike. They would be wonderful if you had time to climb on.

Orion will help your organization find an effective balance between delivering on current day-to-day necessities and implementing tools needed for your company’s new vision.

• Establish and execute portfolio management plan that is synced with daily operations.
• Clarify business requirements so that new technology aids rather than overwhelms your workforce.
• Design and deliver essential training for employees.
• Plan and execute change management so that you do not lose in valuable, long-service employees during the transition.

With more than 30 years of experience serving clients from all industries and sectors, Orion has the expertise to provide your leadership team with the targeted support needed to achieve sustainable growth and ongoing business success. Let us help you scale and sustain your success via Smart Growth.

–Paul King