As a young technology company grows, the amount of time and effort spent on the actual technology is gradually replaced by other tasks such as operations, marketing, sales and management. When a new startup hits the $1 to $2 million turnover mark it has generally proven its technology and that a market exists for it. The next phase is to build upon early successes and drive further growth and scale. Moving the company forward at this stage requires a unique management structure and skill to implement this successfully. In the figure below, we try to portray the role of senior management restructuring, project management and operations and marketing/sales leading into profitability. Remember that this figure is focused on helping companies reach $10-15 million in turnover.

At the head is senior management. In many cases the CEO Founder (who is generally from a technical background) may want to step aside into a CTO (Chief Technical Officer) role and bring in an experienced CEO to take the company through to the next phase of growth. Having a strong CFO will bring in financial discipline and capital injection options to fund further growth. The senior management team must posses the leadership skills to steer the company through change to fuel growth. The senior management team must be comfortable in driving change throughout the organisation and be able to articulate the company’s shared goals and vision to its employees.

Sales are the lifeblood of a profitable organisation. A growing company must create a sales and marketing team capable of a) executing on a practical marketing strategy and b) being able to foster to the right growth environment to make it happen. Too often, we see sales teams and marketing teams separated and not working cohesively in the same direction. Sales teams need input into marketing activities and the marketing department needs to be able to practical and usable market knowledge to their sales teams.

One of the problems faced with growing technology companies is that as the number of projects (internal or customer facing) increase together with the number of people involved. This adds complexity in the operations and communications among staff, and can lead to a lack of focus and inefficient use of resources. One method is to control this is to create a project management discipline that will co-ordinate business activity and business data in order to oversee the scope, schedule and cost of projects. This can be a huge cultural shift for the founders and the initial technical team as there may have been limited project administration in the past and will now be expected to report to a new office / project administrator. There should always be a delicate balance between innovation and control. Like it or not, it is an essential part of the growth DNA in every emerging technology company.

So, in conclusion, change must be driven by a strong, talented management team; sales and marketing must work together to improve the “top-line”; and strong project management discipline will improve the “bottom-line” and therefore grow the “most important line:” profitability.

SocialTwist Tell-a-Friend

Related posts:

  1. Making Your Customers Part of Your Product Development Strategy
  2. How Much Equity Should You Give to Employees?
  3. 13 Offshoring Tips for Start-ups
  4. Go Global From Day One
  5. How Can a Wiki Help Your Business?