Tripling Growth Through Strategic Organizational and Operational Overhaul

Background

In the bustling tech hub in India, a visionary entrepreneur with over two decades of experience was running multiple companies. His primary venture, a scriptless test automation tool product company, was struggling to scale. Despite his extensive entrepreneurial background, the founder faced significant challenges. Introduced to Business Coach Tabish Bibikar through an email campaign and later attending a seminar at MCCIA, Senapati Bapat Road, Pune, he decided to seek Tabish’s expertise for a transformative journey.

Initial Challenges

The company was at a critical juncture with multiple pressing issues:

• Product Development: High feature improvement needs and significant investments were draining resources.
• Financial Strain: The sister concern, a consulting and service company, was funding product development, keeping the product company from positive profit cycles.
• Customer Service: Service levels were dipping, affecting client satisfaction.
• Team and Founder Motivation: Both were at an all-time low due to constant firefighting and high attrition.
• Leadership Stress: Senior leadership was stressed with role overlaps, duplication of responsibilities, and centralized authority.
• Operational Gaps: Lack of clear HR and CFO roles led to process slippage and prolonged vacancy closures, affecting revenue.
• Stalled Lead Generation: Efforts to generate new leads from US markets were completely stalled.

Transformation Journey

Coaching Methodology

Tabish’s approach centered on brainstorming and concluding agreements, guiding the founder and his team to make their own decisions by analyzing their situation holistically. This method empowered the team, fostering ownership of the changes and decisions made.

Organizational Restructuring

The first step was creating a clear organizational structure, eliminating role overlaps and conflicts. Sales and marketing were separated into distinct functions, and customer service was established as a separate vertical away from regular product development. An engineering manager was identified from within to streamline operations.

Product and Process Overhaul

New feature development and product overhaul were initiated with clearly defined processes for requirement gathering, user story definitions, and detailed project estimations. Templates for each phase—requirement gathering, design, development, and testing—were identified to ensure consistency and efficiency.

Marketing and Branding

The company rebranded the product and hired new content writers and a marketing manager. Lead generation efforts were revitalized through email campaigns, LinkedIn outreach, webinars, and account-based marketing. The website was completely revamped to align with the new product vision.

Enhancing Team Motivation

As clarity emerged and firefighting reduced, motivation levels slowly increased. KRAs and KPIs were defined, and a CHRO and CFO were hired. The HR department was restructured into talent acquisition and HR management as separate dedicated tracks.

Strategic Planning and Budgeting

Detailed business planning and budgeting processes were implemented, with monthly P&L and financial metrics tracking. Product sprint planning was established to ensure timely and efficient product development cycles.

Founder’s Role and Time Management

The founder was guided to create a default diary, allocating timeslots for all functional review meetings to establish a rhythm. Initially focusing on resolving operational issues, the company gradually moved to handling strategic initiatives, creating a calm and productive business environment.

Overcoming Limiting Beliefs

Tabish worked closely with the team to identify and overcome limiting beliefs, fostering a growth mindset and encouraging innovation and proactive problem-solving.

Team and Talent Development

As the bar was raised within the company, team churn occurred, but it proved beneficial. It provided opportunities to hire better talent for clearly defined roles, further strengthening the organization.

Outcome

From 2017 to 2020, the company experienced a remarkable transformation, growing threefold. The journey became exciting for both the founder and the team, with renewed energy and a clear vision for the future. The founder developed clarity on long-term strategy, successfully growing both the test automation product company and the testing service company.

This transformation showcases the impact of strategic organizational and operational overhaul, highlighting the importance of structured processes, clear roles, and effective leadership. It serves as an inspiring example for other companies facing similar challenges, demonstrating that with the right guidance and persistence, significant growth and success are achievable.