Taking a business to new heights is never a smooth ride and often the legacy of the past could be blocking the way ahead.
Sometimes your IT and distribution systems might fail to keep up with the pressures of expansion, or your risk-management strategy may be better suited to the business when it was a start-up a decade ago.
According to Andrew Crealy, the managing partner of business advisory group Fifth Eagle, success may have its limits if growth is not managed, and often this can rest with a talent shortfall within the organisation.
“Failure to recruit the right talent affects small and larger organisations alike.” says Mr Crealy.
“It’s not until you start growing your business that you appreciate that the skills needed to maintain the momentum may be well beyond your existing talent pool.”
“This can severely impair the progress you’ve already made and stop your business from scaling up as quickly as you’d like.”
Mr Crealy says identifying the roadblocks to growth and importing experienced executive talent to push through them are essential to take a business to the next level.
While most small and medium-sized businesses can’t afford the added cost of an experienced executive team, that doesn’t mean that the C-suite is entirely out of their reach.
“The secret to growing your business rests with recruiting the right executive talent when you need it, whether that’s a chief financial officer developing risk-management strategies or a chief information officer overseeing IT systems upgrades.” says Mr Crealy.
Fifth Eagle is a market leader in outsourcing specialist executives through its C-Suite as a Service offering. The service makes this expertise available to small and larger-scale businesses as and when they need, bringing the C-suite well within the reach of any business.
“The role of an experienced part-time executive is to tackle the non-routine needs of businesses and help them grow.” says Mr Crealy.
“They tend to be problem solvers and creative thinkers who have a wealth of experience across the corporate landscape.”
“They’re often referred to as hired guns who fill in the gaps of leadership and expertise, but the reality is they become key team members who can identify what is holding a business back and what needs to change.”
“Quite often it’s hard to tell when you need that help, or what kind of help is required.”
These are the tell-tale signs that your business could benefit from Fifth Eagle’s C-Suite as a Service:
- Your business is not growing or scaling up as fast as you’d like;
- You are unable to find the talent to grow the business and, if you do, you have trouble retaining that talent;
- Implementing new processes to cater for growth but finding that the old system was more efficient;
- Spending too much time tinkering with parts of the business that fail to bring change, distracting you from your big picture objectives;
- Wasting energy on areas of the business that frustrate you, and not the bits that excite and where you are more effective.
- Family and friends take a back seat because you have trouble switching off from the demands of the business.
“Being able to draw on part-time executives can give your business the competitive edge it needs to continue growing.” says Mr Cleary.
“They draw on years of experience working with major organisations and contribute to key decisions within your business to help it expand in a sustainable way.”
Fifth Eagle’s C-Suite as a Service provides access to a broad range of executive expertise that can occupy key roles such as chief executive officers, chief financial officers and marketing directors. This may involve fill-in roles for short-term projects or ongoing support for longer-term collaborations.
For more information, visit fiftheagle.com.