When your business grows, it doesn’t fail immediately. It appears down the line, it’s a few weeks or months later, when you’re past that initial surge, and suddenly the processes or the people you relied on start to crack.
If you’re about to scale your business or you’re in the process of expanding, let’s take a look at what exactly you need to be aware of and what is likely to break first.
Communication
Communication is often the first point of failure for any business scaling. Whether it’s internal communication between departments, colleagues, teams or management or miscommunication with customers, it’s never going to end well.
But you can avoid all of the missed messages, mixed signals, ignored emails, calls, etc.c that really should be dealt with promptly.
Before things move forward, you need to implement an efficient method of communication between all departments. There needs to be one focal point, everyone needs to know their role, and what is expected of them. Have one company line that is rolled out to customers, one-way recording all interactions in one system, and ensure everyone knows exactly what is expected of them each and every day. Whether it’s using a CRM that everyone has access to, you use Slack so all team communications are in one place and easily traceable, or you remove barriers for information internally, find what you need and implement it.
Manual Processes
When you grow, tasks that were once easy and quick to complete can get more and more time-consuming. Suddenly, that invoice and email that took 5 minutes takes 10 to account for increased orders fulfilment, and then when you add this to sending out more invoices, suddenly the day is lost to this one task.
If you’re tracking things on a spreadsheet you fill in manually, you’ll notice the difference really fast once you need to add more details and information.
This is where you need to look into automation and software that handles the everyday repetitive tasks you need to do. Look at what is eating into your time, where the most mistakes are made and what people are struggling with. Then identify the right tech and tools to take over this and see the difference it can make.
If you’re not sure where to start or what you need, then you can bring experts in digital transformations on board to assist you in getting set up. They can evaluate your business, identify what you need help with and ensure that what you use helps, not hinders your business.
Ownership
Not of the business itself but of the tasks that need to be performed each and every day. If you’re suddenly splitting tasks across teams that were performed by one person, each person needs to be held accountable and be clear about their roles in this explicitly. If a follow-up doesn’t happen, who was supposed to do it, and why didn’t it occur? If a task was delayed, who delayed it, and what was the reason? Without ownership, it is simply people passing the book. If you determine ownership of every signal task that needs performing, not only will your staff be clear on what they need to be doing, but also how they fit into the bigger picture. So when something does break down, you can pinpoint exactly what went wrong and who was responsible.
