Situation: A company is enjoying 10% organic growth per year and wants to sustain this growth rate. They enjoy a favorable position as a technology leader. Their principal strategy is to continually advance the technology. The chief obstacle to ongoing technological superiority is getting the right people to populate their brain trust. How do you institutionalize double-digit growth?

Advice from the CEOs:

• Look for domestic office locations that have the right talent but a lower cost of living. Florida presents attractive cost of living with low employee turnover.
• Can the company compartmentalize?
  • Set up a remote location, run by a trusted individual, and do portions of the work there.
• Be aware that teamwork within the company becomes a challenge with remote locations.
  • A communications strategy – for example videoconferencing – can help to engender teamwork across distance.
  • The pandemic made videoconferencing a far more viable alternative than it was prior to the pandemic.
• If the company’s infrastructure is highly bureaucratic or the cost of quality high, can adjustments be made that will relieve some of the cost pressures?
  • Creating “Hot Teams” is a method to developing new, innovative solutions.
  • Can the company’s technology be leveraged to improve productivity – for example, using modeling and simulation to reduce prototyping costs?
• Can the company employ knowledge management?
  • Gather lessons learned from past and recently completed projects.
  • Share good or best practices.
  • Make sure that new efforts do not start from scratch.
• Consider outsourcing to universities, with proper contracts.

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