5 Common Challenges – Part 2

We’ve already discussed three of the common challenges growth businesses face.  Once business owners make the decision to uplevel their systems and processes, they may face two additional challenges. The first is ADOPTION. Surprisingly, this is a huge challenge at the executive level. Prior to making the changes, their habits were fairly ingrained. If they wanted an update on a deal or needed to know how a part of the business was performing, they’d pick up the phone or send an email. But as the team grows, that becomes increasingly difficult. 

So, it’s really important for the executive team to serve as a model, by consulting the systems before asking questions, and by using data in the system to make key business decisions. These actions demonstrate to the team the importance of adhering to process and using the new systems. It has to be a top-down, as well as a bottom-up effort. 

Inherent in this as well, is making sure the new systems are designed to be easy to use. You want your teams focused on doing their jobs, not interacting with a clumsily configured system. So, thoughtful implementation is key. 

All of these challenges build on our last point, which is MAINTAINING CUSTOMER SATISFACTION AND PROFITABILITY WHILE SCALING.  It’s virtually impossible to pull this off if the first four challenges aren’t adequately addressed. However, when you have a full team executing consistent processes and keeping data centralized systems, you can easily plug new people into the system and grow more smoothly. 

In the end, businesses that scale correctly are no longer dependent on the heroes that started them up. This de-risks the business significantly, and frees up leadership to either focus more strategically or step away from the business, knowing that it was built to last.

See the rest of this series on the “Building a Better Business Case” Playlist.