3 reasons to build your growth strategy on processes and KPIs

"To finish first, first you have to finish."

Walk among the mechanics at the traditional 24-hour Le Mans endurance race, and you will hear this line repeatedly.

The history pages of this legendary track are crowded with fast cars that outpace everyone until something goes wrong, and they burst into flames. Or end their race behind closed garage doors with mechanical failure.

In 2000, the racing world was baffled as Audi claimed all three podium spots. The highly skilled mechanics had to change the car's rear end to get there.

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A process that would take any other team hours to finish, Audi's top-trained mechanics executed in less than 4 minutes.

Since their first win, they have won 12 times, making them the second-most-winning team at Le Mans.

But what does Audi's motorsport history have to do with growth strategy, KPIs and processes?

If you are not into motorsport, bear with me. I will get to the point.

Processes and KPIs prepare your growth strategy for lasting success

Audi's Le Means history teaches us that you can focus on making as much money as quickly as possible.

Maximum growth in minimal time.

But if you want your company to be a top professional organisation that doesn't just win once but keeps winning repeatedly, you must get your processes and KPIs right.

Audi had built a blisteringly fast car.

Even more crucial, they optimised their internal processes and ensured all the mechanics knew them by heart. The processes allowed them to change a critical gearbox faster than anybody else would have been able to.

This allowed Audi to react proactively to what would have been a catastrophe for any other team. And win the race while they did so.

Because the entire team knows all the team's processes, they have taken the trophy 12 times since then. And because they make key figure measurements on processes and continuously optimise them, no team has even been close to catching up with them since.

If you want your company to win in the long run, you must form a similar growth strategy. This is what separates professionals from amateurs.

Let's see how processes and critical figures can help you do this.

1) You can control a predictable business through processes

Many years in leadership have taught me one thing:

Never gamble on anything new if you don't know your baseline.

If you don't know every corner of your machine and aren't familiar with how each part performs, you shouldn't head for new markets or make expensive technological investments in your growth strategy.

Why?

Because you want to be able to control and redirect your company according to the challenges you constantly face in new business adventures.

The tools enabling you to control your company are KPIs and processes.

The KPIs are your sensors. They show you your company's performance. Like Audi's telemetry on their racecar, they let you see where the bolts have rattled loose and where the machine runs smoothly.

I have visibly placed our most essential KPIs in TimeLog's offices. Then, the employees and I can see where we perform and where we need to improve.

The processes are your guarantee for repeating and optimising whenever your KPIs are in the green. And know how you can tune your company machine if it dives into yellow.

If you have yellow or red key figures, climbing into the engine room and identifying the broken parts is crucial. And that your team can change that gearbox within minutes.

The processes give you confidence that green KPIs are not just symptoms of luck. But they are representations of something you can repeat over and over again.

Properly tuned KPIs and processes allow you to scale your business in your growth strategy.

2) With proper processes, you can deliver what you promise customers

In start-ups, stagnating or struggling companies, it's the burden of the leadership to infuse optimism into the organisation.

An organisation that doesn't believe in itself can never be expected to deliver better results.

In most cases, new salespeople are brought in to create a turnaround and fill the order book. Subsequently, the optimism rises as new orders come in.

But optimism is quickly replaced by frustration for you, your employees, and your customers when you can't deliver what you sell.

If the rest of your company's processes can't keep up with your sales efforts, you quickly work your machine beyond capacity.

I know leaders who run their employees 70 hours a week, desperately attempting to scale the mountain of work in front of them and catch up on overly optimistic deadlines. After some time, the employees break, and the unstable situation is visible to both themselves and their customers.

Alternatively, if you run a company where you know your delivery processes and have tuned them to perfection, you also know precisely what and how much your organisation can deliver.

Not just in a single manic sprint but over and over again.

This predictability will be apparent to customers when your sales consultants present a properly formulated delivery plan. They can then close the deal with the assurance that the organisation will deliver.

In TimeLog, we have spent the past year working intensely to optimise our delivery processes, and we will continue to do so in the future.

Because of this, we can now deliver complete and transparent delivery plans to our largest and most process-demanding customers.

If you do business with large organisations, this becomes a sales argument in itself.

3) Without KPIs and processes, you become slow in a changing market

Most growth companies outgrow their mechanisms. They make a lot of money and have fun doing it. But when they reach a critical size, the boat starts to take in water.

The flexibility of the early days suddenly becomes a conflict between your employees when they can't rely on clearly formulated processes.

Because their KPI framework is not in place, they don't see the danger signs; instead, they keep their foot on the gas because nobody knows what is happening in the organisation.

Then, two or three of their biggest customers terminate their contracts, and the alarms go off. But then, it is often too late.

Companies quickly learn this in industries with a narrow profit margin. But this can continue for companies thriving in a favourable market.

Even in companies that have grown tremendously in size, this ignorance lingers in the stock market.

But then the market shifts, and they have no clue what to do. Often, this leads to a frenzy of new hires and layoffs without identifying the root cause for the lack of performance.

Meanwhile, the competitors have honed their delivery process and found a cost base matching the market.

And they walk away with all the buyers.

You want a supertanker with the flexibility of the start-up

In start-ups, colleagues and leadership sit close together. Everyone is continuously aware of precisely what's happening within the company.

This gives start-ups flexibility and readiness, which you probably envy if you work in leadership in a large organisation.

But you can incorporate this in your company, despite your size.

If you incorporate carefully thought-out KPIs from your junior consultants to the board, your sensors are in place. Then, you can detect signs of a shift in the market long before it becomes a catastrophe and your customers leave.

Audi could see the weakness of the gearbox in the telemetry long before it broke.

If your organisation are in control of its processes and everybody knows them by heart, you can react to KPIs because you can identify the problems in the organisation. You know there are process owners; you can initiate corrective actions, and rest assured they will be carried out.

Audi's mechanics could change the gearbox in less than four minutes, and the drivers could keep racing.

If you base your growth strategy on these principles, you prime your company to act with agility in the market even when you have multiplied your staff headcount.

Year after year of success in a challenging field

Following Audi's first victory, demands and rules have changed several times. New technologies have been introduced, and strong competitors have challenged the German team.

However, because the team is on top of its measurements and processes, it has been one step ahead of the game and always ahead of the competitors.

If you use the same principles in your growth strategy, you will reach your targets year after year.