Company and individuals anonymized.
The Situation
A young, fast-growing company had built something genuinely different. Its edge:
- product design, applying modern materials and techniques to a backwater product category.
- supply chain optimization, assembling a collection of component and packaging vendors into a coherent, outsourced manufacturing and distribution whole.
- retail merchandising, optimizing cube and weight at every step from container to retail shelf and peg board.
The company was growing. Its ambitions were clear. Its new leased space was waiting.
The problem was everything underneath.
The Problem
Tangled origins. The company had been sub-leasing space and equipment inside an old-line manufacturing plant, owned by a first-round investor. While minimizing start-up costs on the front-end, it limited the company’s control of its own warehousing and logistics. To grow the way it needed to grow, it had to get out cleanly.
A bipolar back office. The internal systems were a mash-up: an increasingly elaborate set of spreadsheets handling advanced supply chain modeling alongside an antiquated, make-to-order manufacturing platform. Neither talked to the other. Neither was built for where the company was headed.
Two parallel fires. Moving into new space meant standing up on-premise IT infrastructure from scratch. At the same time, the company had selected a new, advanced ERP system and needed someone to manage that implementation — and the vendor — from the client side. Both efforts were happening at once. Neither could wait for the other.
The vendor wanted someone they trusted to manage their own implementation from the client side. They made the introduction. We had a phone call and “shook hands” on a deal.
What We Did
Phase 1 — IT infrastructure for the new space.
We short-listed infrastructure vendors, solicited quotes, compared timelines and work styles, and helped the client select the right partner. Then we worked alongside the client, their general contractor, and the selected IT vendor to get the build-out done as promised. The infrastructure was live before the warehouse build-out finished. At which point, we handed the ongoing vendor relationship to the client’s Operations Manager and stepped back.
Phase 2 — ERP implementation, managed from the client’s side.
We managed the software rollout as the client’s representative — keeping both the vendor and the client’s own team accountable to timelines, commitments, and outcomes. Our job was to make sure things got done, not just discussed. We tracked open items weekly, escalated blockers, and ran the go-live decision process.
What Changed
The company extricated itself from the incubation environment cleanly. With its own space, its own infrastructure, and its own ERP running, it was no longer dependent on a manufacturing partner that had different priorities and constraints.
More importantly, it could now take full advantage of what the new software was built to do. The bipolar systems — the spreadsheets and the legacy platform — were replaced by a single, capable system designed for the kind of sophisticated supply chain work the company had already been doing manually.
Net-net: within nine months, the company was operating fully independently. Growth had not suffered during the period. What had been eliminated was the need for the management team to be shuttling between two locations. Just in time for growth to accelerate!
The Takeaway
Fast-growing companies often outgrow their origins before they have the infrastructure to leave. The cost of staying — limited control, jury-rigged systems, borrowed space — compounds quietly until it becomes a ceiling. Getting out cleanly requires managing multiple workstreams at once, which is where most growing companies don’t have the bandwidth.
The technology isn’t the hard part. The coordination is.
Industry: Consumer Goods / Durable Products | Engagement type: IT infrastructure buildout + ERP implementation management