The operating model decisions that separate scale-ups that make it from those that don't. Based on 40+ scale-up engagements.
Forty percent of fast-growth businesses stall at the point of scaling. The reasons are rarely about product or market — they are about operating model. The structures, processes, decision rights and cultural norms that worked at 50 people actively prevent performance at 200. This report examines the inflection point and the operating model decisions that determine what happens at it.
Senior leaders and practitioners in Start-up & Scale-up organisations who are responsible for strategy, transformation or technology investment decisions. Written by practitioners who have delivered in this sector — not analysts who have studied it.
What happens inside a business at the moment it needs to scale — and why the things that made it successful to this point become the things that hold it back. The four stall patterns that account for 80% of scale-up failures, with case studies from businesses that recognised them in time and those that did not.
Centralise or federate? Specialise or generalise? Hire ahead of revenue or behind it? The operating model decisions that scale-up leadership teams face are genuinely difficult — and the right answer depends on factors specific to each business. A framework for making them with clarity.
The hardest part of scaling is not building the structure — it is managing the human transition from founding team to professional management. Who moves up, who moves across, who is honestly not right for the next stage, and how to have those conversations without destroying the culture that made the business.
How to build the financial infrastructure, governance structures and board relationships that support scale — without creating the overhead that slows decision-making. What investors at Series B and beyond are actually looking for in operational maturity.
A practical framework for translating operating model decisions into an 18-month implementation plan — with the change management approach that makes it land with the team rather than on them.
Available to senior practitioners and decision-makers in Start-up & Scale-up. Complete the form below and we will send the full report directly.
We will not share your details. Unsubscribe at any time.