Growing a business isn’t just as simple as hiring a lot of people or starting to expand into different markets. In order for an organization to scale successfully, it also must be able to successfully navigate a number of unique obstacles that can come up.

Some of the challenges that businesses face can be a direct result of the growth they start to experience. This can manifest in breakdowns in internal communication or in departments losing sight of the bigger picture.

However, the good news is that many of these hurdles that come up aren’t insurmountable, and many successful brands are proof that by applying certain strategies, they can even make the business stronger.

Where Most Businesses Struggle When Trying to Scale

Growing a business doesn’t just mean being able to increase revenue year-over-year. Growth can also come at a certain price, including increasing spend on certain company resources or improving internal efficiency and company culture.

Even though every business is unique, there are some common challenges that tend to arise in organizations as they become a bit larger. These include:

Maintaining Effective Communication

Open communication is such an important aspect of every organization. However, maintaining this standard is often one of the most challenging elements of regularly scaling a business. The more a business grows, the easier it is for communication to slip across different departments.

Communication silos are another issue that many modern companies suffer from. Decentralized teams due to remote working environments can quickly lead to poor collaboration and missed deadlines. This is no different than a home renovation project trying to be completed while workers in one room lack the visibility of workers in the next. If this were the case, things would rarely get done on time or correctly.

Loss of Community

Company culture is another important element that contributes to the long-term success of a business. If organizations aren’t able to nurture this over time, it can create major issues once more growth starts to happen. 

Down the road, it’s possible that employees can start to feel like there is a loss of camaraderie or the shared company purpose they once felt. This can then lead to distrust among staff members, who may feel like they’re “just another number” or that they’re being purposely excluded from the company’s broader vision.

If these types of feelings are left unaddressed, it can start to create a toxic atmosphere that negatively affects everyone.

Falling Out Of Alignment

The only way to keep business growth sustainable is to constantly check the company’s alignment over time. But this can be increasingly difficult as businesses struggle to balance the need for growth and checking the pulse of their departments.

When misalignment starts to take place across various teams, it can start to strain company resources severely. Individuals may inadvertently start prioritizing their agenda instead of keeping a shared focus on important company goals. Much like if you want to focus on a bathroom remodel or flooring project, having too many contractors working on too many things at once can quickly lead to increased costs and potential missed opportunities when trying to get a home ready for sale.

How Successful Brands Overcome Tough Growth Obstacles

Although company growth will inevitably bring on new challenges, there are a number of strategies that businesses can deploy to successfully navigate them. Many of these strategies have been tried and tested by well-known brands.

Below are some success stories of larger organizations that have had to adapt their business models to manage their growth challenges:

Ford Motor Company

It may be surprising that an automotive giant like Ford Motor Company has also faced significant setbacks as it has grown over the years. However, throughout the years, Ford has constantly had to battle fierce competition while needing to make major improvements in how it innovates and adapts to changing market demands.

Challenges arose for Ford fairly quickly after its assembly line automation began rapidly expanding with new technologies. This led to a major disconnect between the engineering departments across all of its factory plants. To address this concern, Ford started establishing cross-functional teams for each factory made up of engineers, designers,  sales and marketing teams.

By encouraging this level of collaboration on all of their design projects, they enable much more effective problem-solving during production and distribution runs. This helped them establish an environment that fully embraced unique perspectives and a diverse range of opinions.

Zappos

Zappos is a well-known online retailer that markets various types of shoes and other apparel. In order for the company to thrive in a competitive e-commerce landscape, however, it needed to constantly prioritize exceptional customer service, and fast, dependable shopping.

However, the company’s quick success over the years hasn’t been without a number of struggles. One of those struggles happened during their rapid growth phase when the company started to experience departmental silos as more employees came on board.

To counteract this problem, the former CEO, Tony Hsieh, introduced a unique “Holacracy” system, which effectively distributed authority and decision-making processes across self-organized teams.

The result of this shift empowered employees to take more ownership of their own tasks. This allowed the business to keep the customer at the forefront of all of its decisions – bypassing the unnecessary approval processes or back-and-forths between employees and upper management.

Apple

Apple has continuously been synonymous with beautiful designs and cutting-edge technology. However, over the years, the company has needed to make several changes to maintain this innovative spirit and risk-taking culture.

Considering the fierce competition the company has faced, Apple has repeatedly reassessed its company culture to stay true to its vision and meet the demands of shifting consumer preferences.

When they recognized that their organization’s excessive structure could begin to limit employee engagement, the company designed a more collaborative structure that favored open communication and cross-functional teamwork. Employees were encouraged to share their ideas freely and were assigned to smaller, more nimble teams where they were able to focus on specific projects.

All of these changes led to employees feeling like they had more ownership over their work and could maintain a greater sense of pride and accomplishment in what they did.

Don’t Let Temporary Setbacks Hold Your Business Back

Building an effective team is critical for long-term business growth, but it isn’t always easy. By learning from the experiences of a successful brand, you can confidently tackle all the obstacles you experience as your business scales while ensuring you’re able to maintain company alignment and staying true to your vision.