Turning a startup or small business into a more expansive business is one of the most exciting, but also most challenging, transitions an operations leader can experience.
When your team grows from a few, to 10, to 30 people, there will be a lot of changes in the company whether you like it or not.
Below are a few things to consider and advice on how to deal with them effectively.
As a small business, you may have had a very flat and completely informal structure where everyone works together. As you grow, a more formal and hierarchical structure may (but must not) become necessary to keep order.
With more employees, there will also be more roles and responsibilities within the company. This implies that conduit need to be clear about who is doing what and make sure everyone understands their duties and responsibilities.
This may mean the need to create a more formal organizational structure, with different departments or teams managing different aspects of the company's operations. Not only to structure but also to give employees breathing space and clarity on what is expected.
Clearer frameworks can actually reduce stress and increase performance.
As a leader in a small team, you may have had the opportunity to be up close and personal with each employee.
I'm sure you've also been very involved in many parts of the operation. But the more your team grows, the more you will need to transition to a more delegating management style.
For example, structured employee conversations become more important to ensure that everyone feels included and valued when you no longer have your finger directly on the pulse.
With fewer people, communication is usually easy and fast, small mistakes can be easily corrected right in the coffee room.
But as the number of employees increases, it can become harder to keep everyone up to date with the same information.
That means introducing regular team meetings, published news articles and perhaps even internal social media platforms to keep everyone updated and on the same sheet.
Robust IT tools for management system and communication can also be crucial in keeping communication cohesive and continuing to flow. Especially when you no longer have the ability to make those little adjustments and explanations right in the hall.
While crises can occur in organizations of any size, they become more difficult to manage when there are more people involved. You need a solid crisis management plan and procedures to deal with any anomalies before they result in a crisis.
With growth often comes increased need to demonstrate that your company adheres to international standards in various areas to do better business - with more and larger customers.
Whether it is quality management, environmental aspects, or information security, ISO certification be an effective way to do this without having to reinvent the wheel and at the same time get an internationally valid quality stamp.
When you have more customers and employees, the likelihood of complaints and complaints increases. More moving parts in the organization, more communication routes - many are the reasons.
It is important to have robust systems in place to deal with these and also start working in a structured way with corrective and preventive measures as part of your deviation management process.
The larger your business becomes, the more complex and serious the consequences of risks will be.
You need a risk management strategy and maybe even a severity matrix to identify and manage potential problems before they become serious.
As you grow, you're likely to need more suppliers and perhaps even more complex supplier relationships. It is important to have processes in place to assess and manage these relationships effectively. effectual supplier management can save you both money and headaches.
The days of letting employees walk into Elgiganten with their company credit cards are (perhaps fortunately) over.
With growth also comes an increased need to understand and comply with laws and regulations. Whether it's labor law, data protection, or environmental law, it's important to have a solid legislative management in place.
As your business grows, you will need to ensure that your employees receive the training they need to succeed and that you have the tools needed to manage training efforts. Both today and in the future.
This can mean anything from technical education to training in occupational health and safety and quality work.
One thing not to forget is that now is the time to start reviewing the distribution of skills in the company, for example in terms of how skills are distributed in the company. competency matrices. Identify gaps and plug them with either new recruits or by training existing staff.
As a company grows, it can become more difficult to maintain a strong corporate culture.
It is important that company management actively works to live and strengthen the corporate culture, ensuring that it permeates all aspects of the company's operations.
This may mean the need to introduce specific programmes or initiatives to promote corporate culture, such as team building activities or corporate valuation trainings. Of course you also need policy and management work be forces that enhance and further develop culture.
With more employees, the company needs more structured processes and procedures. This may mean the need to introduce more formalised workflows, or the need to invest in systems and technology to manage workloads more efficiently. A good way to start work if it is not already done is to carry out a process mapping as a starting point in the improvement work.
With a larger workforce and more complex operations, it becomes even more important to have a clear strategic plan and clear objectives for the company.
This may mean needing to put in place more formalised strategic planning processes, or needing to hire a strategic planning manager or consultant to help the company navigate the future.
Growing a business is not easy. It is certainly something to be proud of, but it also presents great challenges.
By understanding these changes and planning for them, you as a business leader can help their company navigate this transition successfully.
Do you need help on your journey? We have done it before and are happy to help you on the exciting journey you are facing.
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Turning a startup or small business into a larger business can be challenging. This article addresses ten important aspects to consider and how to manage them effectively during the growth phase of the company.
