It’s inevitable—rapidly growing companies move so fast during a growth stage that they don’t realize the impact of the following challenges until they begin costing them significant time and money.
Within every organization, there is some system or process that worked well enough to get the organization to where it is. However, as the organization grows and breaks through various levels of revenue and growth, the very same system or process becomes the very stumbling block that holds them back. The process has become too slow, needs too many people to execute, and/or is no longer reliable for the amount of data required.
In the two decades our senior custom software developers in Greenville, SC have been working with mid-to-large organizations across the USA, we’ve seen most of our clients (if not all) experience the same 7 challenges:
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Outgrowing current systems
To keep pace and achieve business objectives, rapid-growth organizations often outgrow their own ability to manage their systems and processes. This results in them no longer have the internal knowledge and expertise to diagnose, recommend, and implement the right process changes to deliver faster, more predictable results, and/or build scalable solutions.
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Systems grow old
The processes, systems, analytical tools, statistical tools, and databases that worked effectively in the past no longer keep pace with the increasing data volume. In fact, they now hinder growth because they’re too slow or they no longer deliver reliable results. This is especially true with reporting and older business intelligence processes.
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Limited on-the-go access
A demand has evolved for real-time mobile access and visibility into KPIs and the company’s systems. However, many company’s software solutions and processes aren’t scalable because they were built and implemented before current mobile devices and standards were established, or before the company grew to the point where its mobile or remote workforce had grown to its current size.
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High-cost manual processes
Many businesses suffer from aging processes that are heavily reliant on people executing tasks. To grow in this old paradigm, however, more people would need to be added, but the company’s leadership has recognized that continuing to find and retain people with increasingly specialized/niche skill sets is not scalable.
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Lack of ongoing IT training and growth
Many companies feel the pinch with their IT team’s size and maturity, as well as their current IT infrastructure. Oftentimes, IT has not kept pace with the business’s technology needs. In fact, in many cases the IT systems and internal and/or outsourced IT managed services firm they relied on in the early stages of growth are actually now slowing down the critical pace of the business, rather than driving results.
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Steep learning curves and information silos
Oftentimes, important company process knowledge, even the organization’s “secret sauce,” is captured within the people on the team, making it difficult to add more people efficiently. In many cases, this puts the organization at risk of having too much business knowledge locked up in human capital vs. documented systems that are interconnected and easily accessible.
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Scattered data
Over time, a business team has had to solve complex problems to keep the company moving forward, but now the company has developed many isolated islands of data—and sometimes even rogue systems. It has now become challenging and time-consuming (if not impossible) to get consolidated business intelligence reporting and visibility into operations across these islands of data. In fact, in most cases the leadership has given up hope in having the ability to get near real-time KPIs and has begun adjusting and resetting expectations to account for process inefficiencies.
If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you’ve been saying to yourself, “That’s us!” If so, contact our seasoned team of Kopis software developers. We create custom software solutions to help you continue your trajectory of business growth. Let’s talk!
