Breaking the £2m Barrier: How to Systemise Operations and Free the Founder
Mindset first: design beats heroics
You don’t scale by working harder you scale by building systems. The goal is to create a business that runs on process, metrics and accountability, not on the founder’s stamina.
The Systemisation Framework (MAP → SOP → KPI → CADENCE)
1) MAP your core processes (end to end)
- Sales: lead → qualify → discovery → proposal → win/loss.
- Delivery: onboarding → production/service → QA → handover → renewal.
- Finance: quote → invoice → collect → report.
- People: recruit → onboard → review → exit.
Use a simple swimlane diagram; identify bottlenecks, rework, delays.
2) Write the “starter 7” SOPs
Create one page SOPs for the highest impact steps:
- Lead response (15 minute SLA).
- Discovery call checklist.
- Proposal creation + approval.
- Customer onboarding.
- Weekly production/stand up.
- QA and acceptance criteria.
- Invoicing and credit control.
AI assist: draft SOPs from your current best practice; you refine.
3) Define KPIs & SLAs that matter
- Sales: win rate, cycle days, average deal size, pipeline coverage (3 to 5×).
- Delivery: on time delivery %, first time right %, utilisation %.
- Quality: NPS/CSAT, defects per unit, rework rate.
- Finance: DSO (days sales outstanding), gross margin, cash runway.
Set targets, owners, and weekly reporting rhythm.
4) Clarify roles & decision rights (RACI)
- Assign Accountable owner per process.
- Publish who decides vs who is consulted; stop founder centric approvals.
- Create escalation paths with service levels (e.g., 24 hour decision on blockers).
5) Build the ops tech stack (right sized)
- CRM (pipeline + tasks), project/delivery tool, finance, helpdesk/CS, documentation wiki, form automation (Zapier/Make).
- Integrate only what reduces manual handover or double entry.
6) Install the ops cadence
- Daily stand up (15 mins) for delivery teams.
- Weekly ops review (45 to 60 mins): KPIs, bottlenecks, root cause, decisions.
- Monthly process retro: retire steps that add no value; test one improvement per month.
- Quarterly risk review: capacity, suppliers, compliance.
7) Quality & continuous improvement
- Define acceptance criteria per deliverable.
- AAR after incidents; capture fixes into SOPs.
- Celebrate “process wins” (less rework, faster cycle).
8) Founder liberation plan (30/60/90)
- Days 1–30: map processes, draft starter SOPs, assign owners, launch weekly ops review.
- Days 31–60: automate handoffs, baseline KPIs, remove 2 approvals you no longer need.
- Days 61–90: delegate a full process to a leader; founder exits day to day delivery.
Use AI to accelerate ops
- Turn tribal knowledge into first draft SOPs.
- Create dashboards from exports; surface anomalies and trends.
- Draft root cause analyses and AAR summaries.
- Auto generate meeting notes and action logs from ops reviews.
