Growth without the headcount: what we learned from our October webinar “Deliver 10% growth in a 1% market.”

That’s not just a provocative soundbite; it’s a reality we’re seeing across many client projects. Growth targets are rising, but markets, budgets and headcounts, not so much. And yet the expectation remains: do more, with less. 

So, how do you unlock performance when the traditional growth levers - more people, more spend, more product - aren’t available to you? 

In our latest webinar, Growth without the headcount: how ops can drive performance, Niall Anderson and Gary Gamp dug into this challenge head-on, exploring how operational optimisation, not hiring, is the key to meaningful growth. 

Here’s a summary of the webinar. 

Growth doesn’t come from headcount 

Right from the beginning, Niall set the tone: “Growth doesn’t always come from hiring more people. Often, it comes from doing the right things with the people you’ve already got.” From telcos to financial services, the stories rolled in. One organisation had 150 people in operations - 60% offshore - yet internal reporting was still fragmented, and decision-making painfully slow. As Gary put it: “You can have a lot of people, but if they’re not harmonised, you’re just adding complexity.” Another business believed they needed to hire 75 people to meet demand. After one simple workflow change, that number dropped to zero. 

Before you optimise, understand 

A recurring message was this: get clarity before you change anything. “You can’t optimise what you don’t fully understand,” said Niall. It’s tempting to throw people, processes, or platforms at a problem, but without understanding what’s really going on under the surface, you risk solving the wrong thing. 

Take the telco with 80% of its support tickets being escalated by users themselves, not by actual faults. The real issue wasn’t technical; it was about expectation-setting and communication. “We tend to accept chaos as normal in the back office,” said Gary. “But once you map it, and really see where the drag is, the fixes can be faster than you think.” 

Real-world fixes - what we’re seeing out there 

Throughout the session, Gary, Niall and participants shared real examples from current work, including: 

• A large bank where the box of timesheets under someone’s desk revealed multiple layers of process drag - ultimately leading to a 30% headcount saving. 

• A legal team that was manually reviewing every contract - even those below a certain threshold. By asking why, they realigned the work to match what the business actually needed. 

• An organisation where reporting took 10 days to produce, only to be out-of-date the moment it landed. With real-time dashboards and better ownership, decision-making became faster, clearer, and more actionable. 

  
  

You’re not alone 

As stories came in from across sectors, certain patterns began to emerge. 

One contributor described how a team restructured a single process and saw immediate impact - without hiring anyone new. Another acknowledged the fear of surfacing inefficiencies to senior leaders: “It’s scary to go into a conversation with the board and say we’re not actually doing this efficiently.” It’s a feeling we know well, but that fear often stops progress before it can start. 

Several shared how difficult it is to get teams to think beyond their part of a process. “People understand their section, but not how it connects to the rest,” one participant said. Another pointed to a deeper issue: that people often lose sight of why work matters in the first place. 

These reflections cut across everything - and they reinforce a message we return to often: the back office often holds the answers, but only if you're willing to look closely enough. 

Stop trying to boil the ocean (and start squeezing the lemon) 

Gary reminded us of something important: “You don’t have to boil the ocean. Find your MVP - your Minimum Viable Progress.” Small steps matter. It’s about identifying friction, not overhauling everything overnight. And sometimes, the difference between stagnation and acceleration is a single decision, bottleneck, or outdated process. 

This is especially critical in organisations where optimism is high, but investment is low. As Gary said: “Everyone wants to grow, but no one wants to pay for it.” That’s where optimisation comes in. When done right, it lets you grow without growing - to squeeze more from the lemon without drying it out. 

What’s next? Join our follow-up podcast… 

We’re continuing the conversation with a smart/tasking podcast on business optimisation, recording later this year. If you'd like to contribute - whether it’s a case study, a challenge you’re facing, or a perspective from your sector - we’d love to hear from you. 

Want to watch the webinar?  

You can still catch the full session on demand here: watch the full recording here

If you’ve been told to deliver more - but your team, tools, or processes haven’t evolved - this is the moment to pause and reassess. As Niall closed: “You don’t need to go bigger. You need to go smarter.” Let us know if you want help doing just that.