The science-backed elements to accelerate business growth [Maturity Assessment]

Surviving in today’s competitive business environment is hard. Almost 20% of new businesses fail during the first two years. 45% during the first five years, and 65% during the first 10 years. After 15 years (or more) only 25% will still be standing.

No wonder business owners and managers are feeling under pressure.

Luckily I have good news for you:

1. 15 years of research uncovered three elements that are essential for a successful business
2. We have made it easy for you to identify your weaknesses and how to overcome them through out maturity assessment
    

[Skip the talk - go straight the to maturity assessment]

In this article I'll introduce you to the essential elements as well as deliver an easy way for you to pinpoint exactly where your business needs a helping hand (and where you're thriving). 

But first, let's look at the elements that can make or break your business:

1. Technology
2. Processes
3. Performance

As this article will show they're all interrelated. Let's get started. 

1. Don’t let technology be a showstopper for you

The digital revolution is a fact no business leaders can ignore. (And nor should you).

Whether we call it digital transformation, agility, or see it as an updated version of Moore’s Law, the growth of tools and tech – which has incidentally exploded during Covid19 – is both an advantage and complication when it comes to your business surviving and thriving. 

• It’s estimated that 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are created each day
• The global wearable AI market is projected to be worth $69.51 billion by 2026
• As of 2014, it’s estimated that 90% of the world’s data was collected in the last two years

… just to throw a few numbers out there.

So there's little doubt technology has a huge impact on business and performance. But when you introduced certain tools are equally important. A complex CRM system might be overkill for a start-up but is quite essential as soon as you become a scale up. 

[With our maturity assessment you can pinpoint how technology will best support your business goals and employees.] 

2. Processes always win!

Ever wonder why that new tool didn’t quite pay off compared to the sales pitch you got? Or noticed how – every time you invest in a new system – getting, understanding, and controlling data becomes a full-time job?

Well, here’s a clue: Processes always win!

Buying new tools is pointless if you haven’t figured out the processes for implementation or proper usage.

The same goes for all the neat data we accumulate in these digital times – we need to know exactly: 

• how we are going to use it
• how we want to learn from it
• how it will (or should) change our organisational behavior

And that boils down to processes.

It's key to have easy-to-use processes in order to reduce re-work, improve knowledge sharing and general performance in the company. But processes aren't distributed evenly in most business: Marketing might be really strong on documented processes, while sales in constantly reinventing the wheel. 

It might require thorough process mapping to uncover what it looks like in your organisation.

3. Don't block the way for greater performance 

Here's a fun fact for you: Companies that utilise technology to support the business and have the appropriate processes achieve greater performance across hundreds of 100 KPIs.

And to prove my point you get a few of the 2021-numbers from the annual SPI Benchmark:

Annual revenue growth

• Top performers: 17,4%
• Low performers: 9,4%

Realised hourly rate

• Top performers: 123.2 euro
• Low performers: 37.5 euro

Project profitability

• Top performers: 55.5%
• Low performer: 15.4 %

Remove the obstacles 

So what sort of secrets have these top performers uncovered? Well, it's quite simple:

1. see the obstacles that are blocking your employees from performing
2. remove the obstacles 

Unfortunately, both the seeing and removing part can be tricky in real life.

So let me further elaborate with an example on how technology, processes and performance interrelates 

You're in a company where you track time. In the beginning - or if you have only a few customers or very simple projects - time tracking in a spreadsheet or similar is an advantage. It's easy to get started, it's free and everyone knows it.

But then the company grows.

Customers and projects become more complex. All of a sudden time tracking in a spreadsheet becomes cumbersome, unsafe, and a performance blocker.

Same tool, different results. 

Use performance as a risk indicator 

But how do you become aware of this? Right now spreadsheet is just a way of life, the tool hasn't changed.

But maybe you see a drop in project profitability or a lower hourly rate.

Why?

With more (or more complex) projects you need time tracking data in real-time.

If your project manager is in the dark as to how many hours have been worked on the project or needs to spend multiple hours checking with colleagues if they registered their work, no wonder project profitability drops. 

So in this example the obstacle would be the spreadsheet (technology) and removing the obstacle could be a combination of implementing more automatic time tracking and mapping out a process for time tracking in projects (process), thus resulting in greater profit profitability (performance).

So the trick is to know:

1. When you're ready to implement new technology
2. What tools would help you at the current stage in your journey
3. Where the organisation your employees are suffering from a lack of processes 

The most successful companies are the ones that know which signs to look for at the same time are willing to take the next step and evolve. 

Maturity is the key to business success

The better your company becomes at using technology, implementing processes and improving performance the more mature the company is.

But the first step is to know the status of your company right now and become aware of the signs showing you're ready to evolve. 

In the maturity assessment we focus on: 

• processes
• technology and 
• performance 

... across five essential corporate pillars: Management and leadership, client relations, human capital, service execution, and finance and operations. 

You receive

• A series of questions to analyses your maturity across the five organisational pillars
• A score within each pillar from 0-25, where 25 is the highest and most mature that help you spot the signs your business needs to evolve 
• A short description of your status in each pillar; eg. Finance and operation; level 3: “At this level, you begin to see 15 to 25% margins. You have standard methods for planning, resource, time & expense management...”

Get recommendations based on your individual score

Following the free assessment, you’re welcome to book a meeting with one of our business advisors and get:

• Exact recommendations on which processes your must map out, document and implement according to your maturity
• Inspiration on what technology or tools you should use to further evolve your company based on your current stage
• Knowledge about how your competitors are doing on more than 100 KPIs and trends within the consulting industry

-> Skip the assessment - book a meeting with a business advisor now

Based on 15 years of research and 20 years of experience

SPI Benchmark is the world’s biggest survey of the consulting industry. The benchmark has been published by SPI Research for the last 15 years and this impressive work also lays the foundation for the Maturity Model and Maturity Assessment. 

TimeLog has more than 20 years of experience in the consulting industry and has been part of the SPI Benchmark – working with maturity and operational excellence as a leading PSA provider – for many years.