For Support Departments, Changes Are a Nightmare

Abstract

In support departments, the brakes to growth rapidly become apparent. Bound hand and foot by efforts to cut costs, they are chronically susceptible to killer phrases like “You can’t do that,” “We’re never going to pull this off,” and “What good would that do?” At the same time, support departments are essential to the growth process.

Support departments may not make up the core of your company, but without smoothly running support departments, life would be far more difficult for companies that have dedicated themselves to profitable growth. While we won’t examine every support area in this chapter, we definitely will explore a few of the main support departments in detail, as they are extremely important to growth-oriented change processes, and because they present us with numerous brakes to growth that must be released.

This chapter will provide you with additional insights how to improve Logistics and Operations, IT, Accounting, Finance, Controlling, and Internal Auditing, Human Resources, and Staff departments in order to make them strong supporters of your growth process.