Growing a business from the ground up is a complicated process, and it requires more than hiring a team and increasing sales and marketing efforts. To achieve a sustainable level of growth, organizations need to skillfully tackle a variety of obstacles that appear along the way.
Many of the challenges businesses come across are a direct result of achieving more growth. Common issues organizations struggle with when this happens are communication breakdowns, which can be problematic as employees start losing sight of the business’s primary goals.
The good news is that many of these temporary hurdles aren’t insurmountable. Many successful brands have demonstrated that by implementing the right strategies, these challenges can be overcome and even leveraged to strengthen the business.
Common Business Roadblocks When Scaling
Building a business isn’t solely about increasing revenue. It also requires strategic investments in resources, streamlining operations, and creating a great company culture.
While each business has its own unique journey to follow, certain roadblocks are more common when starting to scale. These can include:
Ensuring Regular Communication
Making sure internal communication is clear and consistent is critical for any successful organization. However, as businesses expand, maintaining this vital flow of information often becomes increasingly difficult. The larger the company, the more prone it is to communication breakdowns between departments.
Another common hurdle for modern businesses is the increasing prevalence of communication silos. With the shift towards remote work and decentralized teams, collaboration can often take a back seat and lead to missed deadlines and other business inefficiencies. No different than in a home renovation project where workers in separate rooms can’t see or coordinate with each other, in a business setting, progress would be slow, chaotic, and likely riddled with errors.
Declining Company Culture
A strong company culture is a vital ingredient for sustaining business success. Forgetting about this aspect, especially during periods of rapid growth, can have severe consequences.
As companies grow, employees might experience a sense of disconnection and lose sight of the shared values and camaraderie they once had. This can then lead to distrust among employees, who may start to feel like they are just an insignificant cog in a machine.
If this type of environment is allowed to continue without intervention from the business, it’s likely that more toxic work environments will emerge, negatively impacting everyone in the organization.
Misaligned Company Goals
In order to continuously grow a business, it requires constant attention to ensure all aspects of the company remain in sync. However, striking a balance between more growth and internal cohesion is hard to achieve.
When multiple teams start losing sight of the bigger picture, it can put a serious strain on company resources. Some employees might unintentionally (or intentionally) start focusing on their own priorities rather than working together towards shared goals.
Just like in home remodeling projects, if you have too many contractors working on different projects simultaneously, costs can skyrocket, and the overall timeline for completion can be jeopardized. It’s the same in business settings, and lack of real cohesion can have major negative impacts on the company’s bottom line.
How Leading Brands Navigate Growth Obstacles
Even though new business growth inevitably brings new challenges, businesses can use proven strategies to overcome them. Many successful tactics have already been proven by other industry leaders.
Below are three of the most effective ways to navigate growth obstacles as they come up:
1. Embrace Innovation and Differentiation
As a business, knowing when and how to step outside of the mold is critical. Industry giants like Ford Motor Company experienced this need firsthand on their path to growth. Ford’s rise to the status it has now has been marked by constant competition and a need to constantly innovate and adjust course based on the changing demands of the market.
As Ford’s assembly line automation began to improve over the years, challenges quickly arose. A significant disconnect developed between the engineering departments across its various factories as production timelines were pushed and distribution deadlines got stricter. To tackle this issue, Ford formed cross-functional teams for each factory, bringing together engineers, designers, sales, and marketing personnel under one group.
This additional collaboration on design projects helped introduce more effective problem-solving during production and distribution. It also created an environment that valued unique perspectives and a wide range of ideas, which ultimately contributed to Ford’s continued success.
2. Never Be Afraid to Adapt
Being able to look past initial success and recognize when it’s time to make progressive changes internally isn’t always easy for businesses, but it’s an important practice. A great example of taking this approach is Zappos.
Zappos has dominated the online retail market in the footwear and apparel category, primarily due to its commitment to top-tier customer service and efficient, reliable shopping experiences.
Despite its impressive trajectory, the company faced challenges during its rapid expansion. As the workforce grew, communication breakdowns and a siloed organizational structure emerged.
To address this, former CEO Tony Hsieh implemented a “Holacracy” management model, which was very different than the traditional way of looking at a business org chart. This system decentralized authority, distributing decision-making power among self-managing teams.
This strategy empowered employees to take greater responsibility for their work and eliminated the unnecessary layers of approval. This allowed for more streamlined internal and external communication to ensure that customer needs remained central to every decision.
3. Don’t Lose Sight of Your Core Values
Apple has long been recognized for its sleek designs and innovative technology. But to stay at the forefront of the industry, the company has had to adapt and evolve over time.
In the face of intense competition, Apple has consistently reevaluated its internal culture to ensure it aligns with the company’s core values and meets the changing needs of its customers.
Recognizing that an overly structured environment could limit employee creativity, Apple shifted to a more collaborative model that prioritized open communication and cross-functional teamwork. Employees were encouraged to share ideas and contribute to smaller, more agile teams focused on specific projects.
These changes created a deeper sense of ownership and pride among employees, who felt more connected to their work and its impact on the company’s success.
Keep Moving Your Business Forward
By studying the strategies used by successful brands, you can effectively navigate obstacles that come up as your business expands. This will not only help you maintain a more unified company vision but also ensure that your growth remains sustainable over time.
About the Author: Dalip Jaggi
Entrepreneur, technologist, and ionate business leader sum up the core of Dalip Jaggi, co-founder of Revive Real Estate, a PropTech company with a goal to democratize house flipping. Since its 2020 inception, Revive has since become the smartest solution for homeowners to maximize their home’s sales value across the nation.
