The intent of this post is not to rant but to point out problems that can cause a great deal of damage to any business.
A couple of years ago I worked for a small (7 employee) young company and recently ran into a former coworker who worked for the business until it closed earlier this year.
Problems:
1. The company was creating procedures which is good but the depth of the procedures greatly exceeded the needs of the company and slowed all processes to a crawl. For example, employees were to email co workers with questions rather than call them or walk over to their office despite the fact that the coworker was in the next office.
2. Despite multiple levels of management all decisions were to be approved by the president who was extremely indecisive and once a decision was reached it took days to filter down to the appropriate level.
3. Simply too many employees for the amount of business the business was conducting.
4. The company had alienated so many of the suppliers in its market that it had a difficult time finding suppliers and those it was able to find were poor.
5. A corporate culture that crushed creativity and motivation.
6. A lack of good financial planning which included spending and borrowing recklessly.
7. Probably the biggest problem that is difficult to face is recognizing when it's time to cut losses and move on before digging a hole that can't easily be dug out of. From what I have heard, the company in question kept borrowing against assets well beyond the value of the assets to continue operations until they were a couple of million in debt. Considering the fact that they used private money and they are located in a small community, the prospect of starting over would be daunting.
A couple of years ago I worked for a small (7 employee) young company and recently ran into a former coworker who worked for the business until it closed earlier this year.
Problems:
1. The company was creating procedures which is good but the depth of the procedures greatly exceeded the needs of the company and slowed all processes to a crawl. For example, employees were to email co workers with questions rather than call them or walk over to their office despite the fact that the coworker was in the next office.
2. Despite multiple levels of management all decisions were to be approved by the president who was extremely indecisive and once a decision was reached it took days to filter down to the appropriate level.
3. Simply too many employees for the amount of business the business was conducting.
4. The company had alienated so many of the suppliers in its market that it had a difficult time finding suppliers and those it was able to find were poor.
5. A corporate culture that crushed creativity and motivation.
6. A lack of good financial planning which included spending and borrowing recklessly.
7. Probably the biggest problem that is difficult to face is recognizing when it's time to cut losses and move on before digging a hole that can't easily be dug out of. From what I have heard, the company in question kept borrowing against assets well beyond the value of the assets to continue operations until they were a couple of million in debt. Considering the fact that they used private money and they are located in a small community, the prospect of starting over would be daunting.
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