If You Controlled Your Compnay, How Much Could You Grow It?

[M.D. Holloway]

Say you were just made CEO (for those of you who are not CEO's), how much do you think you could grow your company? How much more profitable could you make it?
How long would it take?
What sort of things would you do different that the current leader is doing?

[legion]

I could turn it into a million-a-year company (from a billion-a-year).

[Hugh R]

+1

I'll leave the CEO stuff to Bob Iger. I think he'll do better than Michael Eisner.

[Sonic dB]

Id start by firing my immediate supervisor.

[84porsche]

My company is constantly analyzing mergers and just finished one however they are spending money where they don't need to in my opinion. I don't see the whole picture but I have a good understanding from the area of the company I do run.
Being a CEO in my opinion doesn't mean micro-manage but have an understanding of all aspects of your own business and I get the feeling that numbers begin describe people and people's lives and this is coming from a numbers guy.
I respect people in general quite a bit and you can learn a lot about your business from the people that work for you, and if those that work for you are unhappy then no matter which model you are following, your business can fail especially if one or more of your good employees is left in the dark or left without any kind of guidance or incentive.
I could grow the company quite a bit but with positives I can bring, their are negatives, and I need to learn how to deal with this aspect of the business. The industry I am in is a sales/service(contracts)/supplies business with each of these areas needing to be self sustaining however when sales are lacking the other areas need to pick up the slack.

[BlueSkyJaunte]

I'd cut jobs by about 30%. The bloat here is mind-boggling.

[Don Plumley]

There are too many variables to respond to your question with a meaningful answer. Potential growth rate depends upon many factors, including: Industry, current market share, relative competitive strength, current financial strength, shareholder return expectations.

Typically, you want to optimize a growth rate better than industry, typically by gaining market share, with appropriate new products/new market mix, all while improving financial returns. You have to turn all these knobs at the same time, each one impacting the other. It's not trivial.

In theory, there are times in a company's evolution where growth rate is valued more importantly than financial return (like in the early days of a small company). Profits are plowed back into the company. But at some point, growth is no long an appropriate benchmark. Being able to generate consistently improving financial returns is the challenge of running a mature company in a relatively mature industry.

So my point is, growth rate alone can't be the only factor you measure. Cut your prices, you'll get nice growth rates, but at the costs of profits. And profits are the primary reason for a company to exist.

That's why small companies that operate in niches can be so lucrative for sole proprietors or closely-held firms. There can be great lifestyle benefits that the business funds. For example, a general contractor can have a very nice truck that is required for the business. This truck could tow a trailer, emblazoned with the contractor's logo. This trailer could house a race car, also with logo, and depending on how aggressive you want to guide your accountant, all or a portion could be a marketing expense. In this business, maximizing profits and growth rates are not as valuable as maximizing cash flow that drives lifestyle benefits.

I could go on for hours, but you get my drift.

[scottmandue]

I work for the state of Calif.