Futureproofing Strategies for Scaling Business – Embracing Change in a Dynamic Landscape
- Brainz Magazine
- Sep 7, 2025
- 3 min read
John Gelmini, aka John Alexander, is an international consultant, trainer, and interim transformation leader. He has completed 80 engagements since 1995, has helped raise £650 million, and jointly wrote Can You Handle the Truth.
With the possibility of a Sterling Crisis, trouble in the bond market, wider wars, and higher interest rates or costs, navigating the headwinds is difficult enough. Doing so often invites fight-or-flight responses, with cost-cutting, redundancies, and no more CAPEX.
Futureproofing/eliminating knee-jerk responses in a V.U.C.A. World
This means developing an evolving strategy based on uncertain future events where facts and data double every three years (University of the West of England), and past experience is less helpful than it used to be. Businesses have therefore become more agile, slimmer, and faster to react.
Not all employees or directors can operate in this environment. Once the optimum “future state” (where you would like the business to be) is defined, there has to be a process to decide which individuals are capable of thriving in this new world, which are not, and which will need training and development to get there.
Technology can help with this process, but as people represent 67% of overall costs, productivity and performance have to be optimised. That may mean transferring non-core activities to dedicated outsourcers and offshoring. Balancing your desire for control against these considerations requires new thinking, agile organizational structures, an understanding of cultural differences, thinking processes, and the psychology of performance.
Futureproofing can be achieved in a number of ways:
Horizon scanning
Scenario modelling
Rich picture analysis
Delphi
Genius ghosting/wisdom warfare
Wargaming
Backstepping
Causal layered analysis
Hoshin planning
Engaging with a practitioner who understands each method in relation to your mindset and objectives is essential. A sense check might be to examine case studies that illustrate relevant competence and those of the Big 4 accountancy-based practices and the top strategy houses for Rolls-Royce solutions.
Jurisdictional considerations/profit shifting
In a business climate where governments are intent on taxing more heavily to correct past excesses or to “fix foundations,” businesses cannot afford to scale up, grow sales, and improve profitability only to face increased taxation. Outsourced sales in more tax-efficient or tax-friendly locations then become essential, as Charlie Mullins, formerly of Pimlico Plumbers, has demonstrated, along with Sir James Dyson, who moved operations to Malaysia and Singapore rather than Wiltshire, where he started. Choosing the right locations and creating the right structures requires international experience and access to the correct information and advice and should not be undertaken lightly.
Continuous improvement
For those with smaller businesses operating only in the UK, the key is constant restructuring, productivity improvement, and doing much more with fewer people. This means a “no passengers” policy where every action has to be maximised for efficiency and minimised for waste.
Applying Kaizen, 5S, and Poka-Yoke is essential for those small companies that wish to scale up quickly (perhaps 2% of their number).
Actions for non-scalers
There are, of course, those companies that do not wish to scale but are happy remaining very small and profitable, doing what they know best. They should keep doing what they are doing but differentiate efficiently and at speed.
Read more from John A. Gelmini
John A. Gelmini, Mgt Consultant, Interim Leader & Business Mentor
John Gelmini, aka John Alexander, is an expert at optimising productivity, profitability, and sales in culturally diverse and monochrome environments. As an ex-GE Capital troubleshooter, John understands how to effect transformation in challenging environments in the corporate, public, NGO, and foreign government sectors with strategic insight and speed. He is the founder of TRANSFORMATION and believes in "mission completion" to time, budget, and accelerated roadmaps to benefits realisation.
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