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The Handbook: The Operations Podcast
Running a serviced based business, an agency or consultancy isn’t just about great client work. It’s about keeping everything behind the scenes running smoothly.
That’s where The Handbook comes in. Our goal? To help you take your business to the next level of business maturity.
This podcast is for operations and service-business leaders who are juggling it all – people, processes, finance, tech, and everything in between.
Every other week, we dive deep into a specific challenge that businesses face as they grow in headcount and complexity. You'll get practical insights and real-world advice from experts who’ve been there, solved the problems, and know what works.
If you’re looking for smarter ways to scale, streamline, and strengthen your business, you’re in the right place. Welcome to The Handbook community, your go-to guide for better business operations.
And don’t forget to sign up for The Handbook newsletter – we’ll send you the key takeaways from each episode straight to your inbox: scoro.com/podcast/#handbook
The Handbook: The Operations Podcast is brought to you by Scoro.
The Handbook: The Operations Podcast
Ops Quickie: When your stack starts to crack 😬
Ops Quickies – snackable episodes on tech, tools, and systems. 🍿
This one’s for anyone who’s ever looked at their jumble of spreadsheets and apps and thought: “Is this normal?”
Harv explains why the state of your tech stack is actually a mirror of your business maturity – from The Chaotic Era where everything’s buried in spreadsheets and copy-paste is your main 'process', through The Stable Era where processes click into place, and up to The Data-Driven Era where your systems finally give you a clear view of the road ahead.
He also shares the headcount milestone where cracks really start to show if you don’t have a PSA like Scoro in place.
Not sure where you stand? Take Harv’s Business Maturity Quiz (3 minutes, 25 questions) at https://bit.ly/assess-business-maturity and see how your setup stacks up.
And if you know someone stuck in spreadsheet purgatory, send this episode their way.
Hey guys, I'm Harv Nagra, and this is another Ops Quickie. Today let's talk about how your tech stack reflects where you are on the business maturity journey, because the messiness of your systems isn't random. It's a sign of maturity or a lack of it. In the first two of five stages of business maturity, it's spreadsheets everywhere. Random tools downloaded to solve problems in the moment, and a lot of copying and pasting. You're basically flying blind and hoping you're invoicing more than you're paying out. It sounds crazy, but 55% of service businesses, including agencies and consultancies, never grow past this stage. If you manage to level up to level three, you hit what I call The Stable Era. This is a big milestone. You have fewer, better, more considered systems in place. You have documented processes and your team follows best practice. This is usually the point a business brings in a professional services automation, PSA platform, like Scoro, or at least tries to integrate all the existing platforms. The good news? You finally start generating reliable data. The catch, it's mostly looking backwards. You know what happened last week, last month, last year, but you're still guessing at what's ahead. About 25% of businesses get to this stage. Then comes level four, The Data-Driven Era. This is where the real magic happens, okay? You've got an integrated tech stack. If you didn't do it before, you definitely have a PSA in place now and you're generating reliable forward-looking data that you can actually use to forecast capacity and revenue. It's no longer just got instinct. You're making decisions based on the data in front of you. Only 15% of service businesses ever get to this stage. Now, a quick word on scale, in my experience, it's around the 40 person mark when the cracks really start to show, if you haven't consolidated your systems, that's the point where the flying blind isn't just stressful, it's a real blocker to your growth and profitability. So where are you today on that maturity curve? I've put together a short business maturity quiz that helps you benchmark your current stage and gives practical advice on what to focus on next. It takes about three minutes. It's 25 questions, and you can find it at bit.ly/assess-business-maturity. I'll put a link to it in the episode notes. If you've got any questions about operations tech, business maturity, PSAs, or Scoro, drop me a message on LinkedIn, my name's Harv Nagra. And if you know someone who needs this explainer, please forward it on and ask them to give it a listen.
