Transitioning operations to accommodate growing pains in evolving companies: an application of product profiling to a service company

Abstract

As businesses progress through their organizational lifecycle, many experience growing pains associated with increased volume, product line breadth, personnel, and the complexity associated with managing larger businesses. It is essential that the company have the ability to recognize these and develop methods of dealing with them if they expect to survive. While many authors address the area of how to grow in terms of marketing, product development and financing and, while they note that there are risks to rapid growth, little information is available on how to recognize trouble spots, analyze them and accommodate them. The product profile is a management tool that helps decision‐makers to identify problems that have evolved through time and to identify impending opportunities on the horizon. Discusses the advantages of adapting product profiling to services to identify and accommodate growing pains and then provides an example of its successful use by a service company.