Current Research Projects
Harvard Business Review
We have been asked to contribute our expertise to a new online Midsized Insight Center running for one year beginning March 2021. The world has changed amid the pandemic and midsized businesses have had to quickly adapt. We are creating articles about midsized companies’ successful adaptations to the challenges facing midsized businesses in the wake of the pandemic. We are restricting our research to companies with revenues between $10M and $750M. We are interested in companies who have interesting and successful approaches to working through this global pandemic and the leading practices they have established that will serve them well post-pandemic. This includes all areas of business performance that enable their companies to continue growing and building enterprise value. All interview subjects are confidential and companies interviewed will review a fact sheet to ensure that they control information about them before it is put in print.
Go to HBR’s Midsized Insight Center
See all of Rob’s articles on HBR
The 9 Growth Drivers of Midsized Companies
We are looking to deepen our knowledge in nine crucial areas that drive the growth of midsized firms. We have completed our work on the first three drivers and our book is in production. Our focus is now on drivers 4-9, detailed below. We are restricting our research to companies with annual revenues between $10 and $400 million. If your company (or a company you know well) has a particular strength in one of the drivers, we would like to invite you to join our research.
This is not our first research project
Our prior research work culminated in seven Harvard Business Review articles online, and a bestselling book, Mighty Midsized Companies; How Leaders Overcome 7 Silent Growth Killers, by Robert Sher. We also publish on Forbes.com
Researching A Unique Journey – The Emerging Midsized Company
Companies are considered midsized usually when their annual revenues are between $10 million and $1 billion. The focus of this research is around the transition from small or startup to the lower end of midsized – up to about $300 million in revenues. We call them emerging midsized companies. Companies in this transition are in a formative stage with problems unique to this transition. We look to explore specifically how emerging midsized companies actually manage the nine growth drivers that will propel firms from small up to $300 million revenues and beyond.
Our nine growth drivers are:
- #1 Recruiting: Consistently recruit enough high-quality talent at all levels to fuel growth.
- #2 Developing: Actively develop the high-potential talent already within the organization, reducing the learning curve and internally supplying some of the leaders for the next generation.
- #3 Leading with Teams: Teams (not an individual) lead the organization. Throughout the organization, team members enjoy working together in a cohesive fashion and are highly productive and effective.
- #4 Planning and Managing to Plan: Firms create higher-level strategic plans that look forward 3-5 years, as well as separate shorter-term operational plans the clarify activities for all leaders in the year ahead and provide a benchmark for performance.
- #5 Data-Driven Systems: The company collects data systematically in all areas and analyzes it against targets on an ongoing basis to become more efficient and effective.
- #6 Finance Capability: Firms clearly understand their financial wherewithal and the finance team is forward thinking, helping achieve company targets
- #7 Market Intelligence: Regularly collect and record information about the markets in which the company plays (competitors, customers, talent pools), and use that to modify market-facing strategies.
- #8 Strategic Growth: Execute strategic growth initiatives such as looking for and considering acquisitions, joint ventures, new regions and adjacent opportunities.
- #9 Systematizing Sales and Marketing: Systematic execution of sales and marketing activities that deliver predictable (and positive) results and can be scaled up to attain more sales when desired.
Robert Sher is founding principal of CEO to CEO, a consulting firm of former chief executives that improves the leadership infrastructure of midsized companies seeking to accelerate their performance. He was chief executive of Bentley Publishing Group from 1984 to 2006 and steered the firm to become a leading player in its industry (decorative art publishing).