Technology and Systems - Growth Business

Technology warning signs:

Growing companies will outgrow their systems and underlying technology. This is inevitable as few companies set up world class systems at start-up. These systems evolve over time; usually with minimal investment until the business is becoming negatively impacted  and the founders or senior management agree something needs to be done.

In fast growing companies this process can occur every 2 to 5 years, until growth slows. The warning signs, that technology change is required in the near future, include:

• Ongoing criticism of the existing systems by stakeholders
• No clear direction or plan for supporting technologies, ad hoc random approach to technology to date
• Large amount of manual processes and intervention to get anything done
• Difficulty in obtaining key data or ad hoc reporting
• Beginning to impact the motivation negatively of staff, mainly in the finance function
• No integration between systems driving manual interfaces and continuous errors

Avoiding the Technology and Systems issue:

By avoiding or delaying the technology or systems issue, you will be inviting the following:

• Increasing staff frustration and sometimes departure, difficulties with staff retention
• Increasing staff cost and overtime to manage the volume of transactions through manual processes
• Increasing cost of recruitment, due to turnover
• Customer frustration and potential loss
• Supplier frustration and potential charges for late payments or other inefficiencies
• Not having access to information to run the business
• Question, or lose trust in the ability to deliver accurate information or outputs

Common traps in managing technology issues:

• Technology costs can be significant. Make sure there is a robust business case to support all potential investments
• Poor system selection process
• Not managing implementation risk proactively
• Focusing only on the technology and ignoring people and process

Read more on growth business characteristics.