There are lots of different methodologies that discuss how businesses should scale up. But these are often theoretical and don’t provide enough real examples of the issues that young companies face. At Vie Carratt we help companies with practical solutions that enable our clients to put in place structured, yet flexible approaches to rapid growth.
Best of breed solutions
When a company gets to a certain size it should focus on rapid growth. Businesses are ready to enter this scaling up phase when there’s strong demand for their offering and when the price that people are willing to pay, and the return the company will make, is clear.
Verne Harnish’s book Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It…and Why the Rest Don’t discusses four major decision areas that need to be addressed during this process: Strategy, People, Cash and Execution. It also provides tools and best practices for driving growth. We often use Verne’s techniques and have seen lots of success with his approach.
We’re also fans of Google’s Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) system, which came from Intel. OKRs provide a simple system for setting objectives and quantifiable key results that will help to measure them.
We want to share our experiences and encourage questions from companies that are scaling up. Over the coming months our newsletter will offer insights into what we believe is key to rapid growth and we’ll share examples from successful companies we’ve worked with.
We’ll discuss the four decision areas: Strategy – what a business offers, who its customers are and how much it should charge; People – what sort of people businesses need and how to organize them; Cash – how can you ensure you have enough to execute your plans with sufficient flexibility to accommodate changes; and Execution – how to get things done.
Promote execution
You need discipline to keep on track of execution plans. Keeping to meeting schedules and ensuring everybody attends is a challenge in itself. The execution planning process begins at a high level and relates to objectives in the business plan. It should then ripple down to objectives for departments, teams and individuals. The problem is most people are good at knowing what they need to do but are bad at actually doing it. Employees get tied up with day-to-day tasks and fire-fighting, and forget to prioritize the things that will actually move the business forward.
Measurable objectives for people
When it comes to people, some methodologies advocate giving employees the freedom to decide their own responsibilities and objectives. Others follow a more military model where orders should be given from the top and followed to the letter by the workforce. In reality, most companies find they have to shape jobs according to the skills of the people they have available. Regardless of your approach, it’s important to set measurable objectives to help employees stay on track.
We look forward to sharing our thoughts on how we help businesses to prioritize opportunities, solve challenges and focus their efforts on where they can be most successful. Our next article will discuss execution – let us know if you have any questions!