Fractional Operations
for Scaling Businesses

Leverage your operations team to take you further. Empower them to build processes that can scale with your business.

Your ops team / ops manager knows your business; they keep the trains running by executing current processes, but they may not know how to scale. We will help them build a scalable operating framework, customized for your business, into which they can grow and manage as the business expands. Leverage your existing team to carry you further.

How We Deliver Success

Our special sauce is in the way we empower teams to become better operators. Other fractional COOs take control and dominate an organization through force of personality and strong-armed discipline. Blue Fractal’s approach is firm but flexible. We won’t budge on the fundamentals beneath best practices, but we also recognize the best ideas often come from within the team. Never ‘my way or the highway’, we partner with your Ops team to create ‘Our Way’ – melding their deep knowledge of the business with our deep business experience. The result is scalable and robust solutions specific for your business.

Pain Points Commonly Experienced in Growing Businesses

    Table 1: Partial List of Common Pain Points
    
            SYMPTOM
            TYPICAL ROOT CAUSE
            HOW WE FIX IT
        

    
            Solving problems feels like whack-a-mole.
            Lack of business cadence.
            Daily, Weekly and/or Monthly checkpoints.
        

            Client complaints: not getting what they thought they were sold.
            No process or highly manual process for onboarding new clients or projects.
            Customer journey mapping, identify pain points, prioritize and solve.
        

            Balls getting dropped, projects behind schedule, especially with larger clients and projects.
            Poor definition of roles, responsibilities, and role boundaries.
            Project charters, project visibility, RASCI charts.
        

            Individual contributors become bottlenecks.
            Weak organizational structure.
            Structure review, talent review.
        

            Inconsistent feedback staff vs clients/market.
            Weak data systems and structure.
            Implement simple data collection. 
        

            Too many projects. People working very hard for lackluster results.
            Low visibility on company goals & objectives.
            Leadership goal setting Project prioritization methods.
        

            Exasperation and burnout – team feeling overwhelmed and no end in sight.
            No experience building operational plans.
            Identify and measure input metrics – team knows what to focus on to win.
        

Table 1: Partial List of Common Pain Points
SYMPTOM	TYPICAL ROOT CAUSE	HOW WE FIX IT
Solving problems feels like whack-a-mole.	Lack of business cadence.	Daily, Weekly and/or Monthly checkpoints.
Client complaints: not getting what they thought they were sold.	No process or highly manual process for onboarding new clients or projects.	Customer journey mapping, identify pain points, prioritize and solve.
Balls getting dropped, projects behind schedule, especially with larger clients and projects.	Poor definition of roles, responsibilities, and role boundaries.	Project charters, project visibility, RASCI charts.
Individual contributors become bottlenecks.	Weak organizational structure.	Structure review, talent review.
Inconsistent feedback staff vs clients/market.	Weak data systems and structure.	Implement simple data collection.
Too many projects. People working very hard for lackluster results.	Low visibility on company goals & objectives.	Leadership goal setting Project prioritization methods.
Exasperation and burnout – team feeling overwhelmed and no end in sight.	No experience building operational plans.	Identify and measure input metrics – team knows what to focus on to win.

Move Beyond the Chaos - Get Control

Most small and medium sized organizations end up with some combination of the above symptoms. It’s not for lack of effort or desire, it’s because the way an organization works when it’s getting off the ground is chaotic. Everyone wearing multiple hats, people stepping up to pull all-nighters or do heroic acts. It’s awesome to watch and be a part of; however, that bust-down-walls do-whatever-it-takes mindset starts to get in the way as an organization matures. A talented tight-knit team is incredibly powerful, but it can only do so much, and there comes a point when they need experienced support. The company doesn’t yet require a ton of structure - just enough to keep the gears oiled and spirits positive, with the right level of transparency (i.e., data) for making key decisions. Move beyond the chaos and get control.

Sample Services

Blue Fractal’s Scope of Services spans the following and more…

CUSTOMER JOURNEY MAPPING to reflect your customers’ experiences with your organization, identify improvement opportunities and scaling impacts and options.
SALES / OPS HANDOFF PROCESS: review, recommend, and coach the team through change.
IDENTIFY BUSINESS DRIVERS AND BUILD DATA SETS to measure business performance. We focus on input metrics that move the needle.
SYSTEMS / TOOLS IMPLEMENTATION: review, recommend, and coach the team to change.
METHODOLOGY for ongoing goal setting, accountability, and transparency (EOS or similar).

CREATE SCALING PLANS CUSTOMIZED FOR YOUR BUSINESS. Identify triggers and trigger points at which systems, tools, process, technology, people, org structure must be upgraded.
DOCUMENTATION & TRAINING for team members.
COACHING for all team members, not just operations.
Assist with BUDGETING & FORECASTING
TALENT PLANNING
AUTOMATION SOLUTIONS, vendor selection, contract negotiation, and implementation planning.

What to Expect

Different than a consultant, as fractional operations staff we become a part of your team - on a part-time basis. We’re not just advice-givers with no accountability. We are doers. We roll up our shirt sleeves and dig in – we will become part of your org structure, manage people and teams as needed, and become responsible and accountable for results. We tackle projects and work on problems, shoulder to shoulder with your current team. Each of our engagements has a clear mission – a desired end state to achieve. This includes sufficiently training and preparing the team to run on its own. Once we’ve accomplished the mission, the aim is for Blue Fractal to step away from the organization.

Fractional Operations for Scaling Businesses