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Component Manufacturing dverti$er
Don’t Forget! You Saw it in the
Adverti$er
October 2017 #10219 Page #28
Todd Drummond Consulting, LLC.
Mid-Size Companies Have the Greatest Challenges Website: www.todd-drummond.com – Phone (USA): 603-748-1051 E-mail: todd@todd-drummond.com Copyrights © October 2017
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rowing a smaller company’s sales to that of a mid-size company has many challenges. The additional staffing and departmental growth can face unexpected roadblocks. Two key fundamental areas present themselves in unexpected ways. • Communication – Communication is the act of conveying information through any form, such as verbal, written, or any other means. • Delegation – Proper delegation entails empowering others with authority to carry out employee management tasks. Everyone understands that a group of people must be able to effectively communicate all information about a company’s daily activities. But we often do not understand why some of this communication becomes a problem. Some things fail to be conveyed to the proper individuals or departments. The excuses, “I was not told about that” or “No one informed me that it was changed,” become a greater problem as the volume of sales increases. But what about delegation? How does this become a problem as sales volume increases? Here are three examples according to sales volume. Small companies with sales less than $5 million – Small companies normally have a predisposition of being very effective with good communication. Everyone understands who to talk to for resolving issues and who needs to be aware of anything critical. But the needed trait of delegation is normally very poor in practice. The owner or general manager makes all of the decisions for all of the given areas. Very little delegation or empowering of other people within the company to make critical decisions is allowed. The owner/GM feels that he or she must stay on top of everything, and, given the size of the company, this is usually not a problem. Large companies with sales greater than $15 million – Delegation is certainly not an issue for the larger companies. Departments are formed, and managers have defined roles and responsibilities. It is impossible for one person to keep track of every task being completed, so all larger companies must learn to delegate and assign supervisors and managers to make critical decisions within their defined roles. What often does become a problem and must effectively be resolved is communication. Systems of communication are implemented to convey all of the daily activities of the company and handle the critical daily needs of all communication. However, whenever something falls outside of the normal communication needs, very often large companies fail miserably with communication. Mid-size companies with sales of $5 to $15 million – Very often, when companies are transitioning from smaller to midsize, their net profits suffer for years until they learn hard lessons. Too many owners/GMs fail to understand why they are struggling as they grow from a smaller company to a larger one. They feel that they should be healthier because the sales volume is at a rate that should denote stability. Too often, what is common is that they are buying more equipment and increasing staff. All of this investment does not seem to be paying off as they had expected. Why is this? PHONE: 800-289-5627
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