How do you optimise your operations as you grow?
As you scale, the systems, technology, processes and meeting rhythms that got you here often won’t carry you to two or three times the size, so operations need deliberate attention. That means auditing your tech stack, removing bottlenecks and manual steps, tightening meeting rhythms, and bringing in automation or AI only once you’ve defined the problem it’s meant to solve.
Why do the systems that got you here stop scaling?
Start by recognising that the setup which got you here often won’t scale. Clients half-joke about systems that are “band-aided and elastic-banded together”, and you can’t grow two or three times bigger on that. Operations touches everything: HR, finance, sales and marketing, the CRM it all sits on, product development, workflow, project management, and for larger firms supply chain and logistics. The single most useful exercise is to stop and audit your technology stack, because tools accumulate silently. Ask what you use for HR, finance, expenses, forecasting and workflow, and you’ll often uncover ten or fifteen pieces of tech that don’t talk to each other, adopted ad hoc as people bring in what they liked elsewhere. Then attack the processes: remove bottlenecks, kill manual steps, and tighten your meeting rhythms. Getting bigger usually tempts you into more meetings, when a smoother operation needs fewer, on a more regular cadence.
When should you bring in automation or AI?
Only after you’ve defined the problem, not because a tool looks exciting. The common mistake is jumping straight to the solution: “this new gen-AI tool is really cool, we should use it.” Back up and ask what problem you’re actually trying to solve, then work out whether automation, AI, gen AI, or simply a better dashboard is the right answer. Dashboarding is often the quiet win: what are the ten metrics that make your business hum, and can you pull them from all those different systems into one view? Framed this way, technology decisions become deliberate rather than reactive, and you avoid bolting on tools that add complexity without solving anything. The problem comes first; the technology is whatever genuinely fixes it.
How do you build a high-performance team?
Go right back to how people enter and move through your organisation, because performance is built across that whole journey: recruit, onboard, train, develop, review, give honest feedback, and learn from exit feedback when they leave. When someone isn’t performing, the honest questions are whether you recruited rigorously, onboarded them well, trained them and had the tough conversations. Beyond process, teams perform when people genuinely understand each other: it’s striking how often someone says “I’ve worked with you three years and never knew what motivates you.” Great sports coaches model this, reading each player, knowing exactly what gets the best from them, and making sure everyone is clear on the role they play. And don’t only look at how individuals operate; step back and ask how well you function as a team, because a team of champions is not the same as a champion team.
How 24HRBP approaches this
In a 24 Hour Business Plan session we work through operations and talent as part of executing the plan: auditing the tech stack, clearing bottlenecks, and getting the team journey and roles right. The goal is an operation and a team that can carry the growth plan, not just cope with today.
Watch the full episode on The 24HR Business Plan Podcast: Episode 9 - Optimising Operations for Business Growth
