Nearly every successful middle-market company eventually faces a swarm of competition. When their core business contracts, single-product companies can find themselves fighting for their lives. But the companies which plan highly-related diversifications before such downturns grow in good times and bad.
Many executives and companies have a built in limiting factor, just like the governor on a gas pedal. Here’s how you can prevent micro-management at the highest levels from stifling your growth.
What could ever be wrong with a strong, growing top line? What would be wrong with running a lean company? The answer: Too much work to do and not enough people or resources to execute it well.
Building a supply chain is one thing. Cross-linking three existing supply chains in new and unique ways is quite another. CEO Neal Gutterson of Mendel Biotechnology shows how it’s done.
For years, global operations have been the province of the large firm, but this is changing. The experience of Raju Reddy, CEO of Sierra Atlantic, shows us how going global can become a strong driver for growth even with a small firm.
Having the cash to grow is usually the last prerequisite before implementation of the growth plan. But there are many other prerequisites that take longer than getting money. You need a proven, repeatable, scalable process that you’ve tested, that can produce predictable results.
Every successful startup goes from an entrepreneurial stage to a professional enterprise. Not all of the founding team can make the transition.
Trying new things in business is a must. But not all new ventures succeed, so the process involves some inevitable waste of resources and time. Don’t let that discourage you: the amount of waste can be managed.
The Vita Companies, guided by President Karl Hansen, started their business in 1979 in the usual fashion: marketing, selling, cranking out the work, and starving all the while. Then they set sail on a new tack, contrary to all established business “wisdom”, and steered toward double-digit growth.
As Dave Seldon, CEO of Interpacific Management Group, found, doing business in Asia is entirely different, based on the firm foundation of friendship. But this doesn’t happen over the internet or telephone; it’s a long process involving personal contact.
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).