On Strategy: Organize Before Growing

Last week I happened to conduct the pre-conference workshop at ISBA 2013 conference at Bhubhaneswar.  During the workshop and numerous times post the session I had people walk up to me and ask about scaling their operations/business. They shared with stories of repeated failed attempts and wanted to know what aspect of it could have gone wrong. While we did have discussions on the challenges as much as time would permit–most of them were taken by surprise by one of my comments.

I  told them if they have not organized themselves for scaling or growth – no amount of their efforts is going to yield any results. At the most they can expect ‘spikes’ but not sustainable and even growth.

Organizing comes before figuring a formula for growth. Once you have figured a market/opportunity to go after, you need to look at your business design and ask yourself if the business can take on the pressure of growth evenly – or will it get skewed and collapse?

While some may ridicule this as just a  theoretical thought, I have personally seen it help some of our clients to scale sustainably. During my strategy engagements I have had my CEO’s and Entrepreneurs sit down to re-look at their design and subsequently their plan for possible growth. This has made them see options that were not there before and also understand the weak points in the business design that was coming in the way of sustainable scaling.

Hence before you decide to scale – relook if you are organized for scale. If not do that first and then begin…