In order to succeed with scaling, making sure that your internal and external communication channels are ready is pivotal. Think along the lines of the Allied landing at Normandy. In order for this, the largest amphibious assault in military history, to be a success, thorough planning was required. When it came to communication, every detail needed to be addressed so that a miscommunication at the wrong moment wouldn’t derail everything.
In order to make sure that your company is ready to scale and will not be hampered in any capacity with communications issues, examine all of your internal and external communications with the following considerations:
Investigate How well are all of your current communication channels functioning? What is their capacity? How close are they to maxing out their current capacity? Is it possible to expand the communication channel capacity to accommodate larger demand?
Analyze: Review all of the material carefully, especially in comparison with current scaling plans that your company might possess. Focus specifically on trying to identify all of the areas that will require adjustment due to an increase in customer demand.
Plan: Once you have identified all of the areas that require improvement, the next step needs to be determining how to address all of those issues. Critical to your success on this point is making sure that you develop an effective plan to address every issue.
Implement: Once you have developed your plan, go ahead and immediately work towards implementation. It is important to keep in mind that the most optimal way to prevent issues is to get to this phase just before you begin the scaling process. If you do it too early or too late, the net result will be a great deal of inefficiency.
Assess: How well do your changes work? Did you manage to fix all of the problems? All of these considerations (including all of your initial investigations) need to be assessed thoroughly, especially when scaling begins for your company. Since scaling means that you can expect the volume of work to grow, it is imperative that any and all issues that emerge be immediately addressed.
Do not hesitate to repeat this process until everything is functioning smoothly. You want to make sure that your scaling operations have every chance to be successful. Only move on once you are certain that every potential issue has been resolved.
Communication channels are not rocket science to maintain properly. The challenge here is making sure that they remain clear and able to handle the capacity that scaling is about to throw at them. The last thing that you want to do is to have business lost simply because communications got choppy, causing frustration by your workforce and potential customers deciding to take their business elsewhere.
Think of your communication channels along the lines of a commercial gym. The equipment is almost constantly in use, especially if it is 24/7. Not only are gym members requested to clean the equipment, but also gym employees are constantly going through the gym, looking for ways to keep everything clean for members to use when they arrive. This approach needs to be the same with communication channels. Nothing can be allowed to build up over time, since this situation can result in long term issues down the road.
At the end of the day, one crucial consideration when it comes to scaling is the likelihood that there will need to be additional tweaks and adjustments moving forward, especially if things are very successful. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this, since it means that your expectations have been substantially exceeded. However, what is important is that you are paying close attention to all of this growth. As soon as signs of issues begin to emerge, immediately follow the process outlined above to start tweaking your communications channels. This time, be prepared to think much bigger, especially if the signs are pointing towards an extended period of growth likely in the works. That way, you will be more than ready to take on this and any other challenges.