Question

Next, explain the key elements in the growth stage that Dionysus should understand. (Based on a 'Case of Growing Pains')

When he first opened his own business, Dionysus loved it. He went to work early in the
morning and did not leave until after 9.00P.M. To spend time with his family, he would take off
a few hours in the afternoon and then return to the store after supper, staying until closing
time. When he was away from the store in the late afternoon, part-time personnel handled the
operation.
That was five years ago. Since then, Dionysus’s business has grown tremendously. Now
he employs eight full-time people and sells seven times as much as he did originally. With this
increase in business, however, have come a lot of headaches. In particular, Dionysus has to
make many more decisions than he did before. Additionally, although he wants to get his
employees involved in the decision-making process and not do all of the work himself, he feels
he must do many tasks on his own. He does not believe he can delegate much authority. For
example, Dionysus still makes all of the decisions regarding purchasing, pricing, advertising,
hiring, and merchandise display, and he still sells goods in the store.
Recently, Dionysus went to the doctor for his annual physical. The doctor told him he
was working too hard and had to start slowing down. “You’ve been running that store singlehanded for as long as I can remember,” the doctor said. “You’ve got lots of help in the store.
Start relying on them to help you out.”
Dionysus did not disagree. The doctor offered good advice, and Dionysus knows the has
to start delegating more authority and getting out of the actual hustle-bustle of daily activity.
However, this worries him. A few months ago, he tried turning over more work to his
employees and staying in the background. During that time, he concerned himself with the
overall operation of the store and left the minor day-to-day business to the staff. But Dionysus
was bored with this side of the operation. He wants to be active-active role in the business, not
just to sit in the sidelines. Second, he wants to be in the forefront of the action, like he always
has been.
Dionysus does not know how to resolve this dilemma. He would like to maintain his level
of involvement at the shop but realizes that, for health reasons, this is inadvisable. However, to
be a manager in the true sense of the word seems boring to him.
Source: Adapted from Kuratko, D.F & Hornsby, J.S. (2009). “New Venture Management: The
Entrepreneur’s Roadmap”. New Jersey: Pearson International Edition.

Answer 1

The growth stage is where the business model is clear and so is the customers. It is a stage which has elements like a long term business that is secured, a few high-level team members who can be delegated,

In this step, the profits are generally strong as the company is gradually coming out of the struggle or startup phase. In this stage, it becomes important to have effective management in times of increasing growth. Thus, it is necessary to develop managerial skills and a growing team and adopting the skill of delegating the authority and empowering the employees.

Thus, a differentiating factor when compared to the startup phase is that the owner or the manager should now gradually take up the back end role, start delegating the non-crucial tasks or decisions. This is essential to progress well to the maturity stage.

In this case, Dionysus's business is growing tremendously. He has full time and part-time employees. With the increase in business, he must understand that every task from selling to purchasing cannot be done single-handedly, and thus its time to take more crucial roles in hand and trust team members with other tasks. While he may not like the role as according to him it's not active-active but occasional hopping between the roles is fine to have an overall understanding. But for growing to next stage maturity, a more concentrated effort to expand the business needs to be thought upon and executed, which cannot be done by a single person