Start-up Companies : A Guideline for Growth and Governance Management System (GGMS)

Vishnuvarthanan MoorthyAug 2015

Purpose

There is an exponential increase in startup companies because of digitization, global economic policies in many countries and they play a vital role in the future of global economy. However only 30 to 40% of start up companies flourish and become stable and strong Organization and other don’t. They survive and becomes stronger not only because there is intelligent brains behind it but also there are systems they set it up on their own. Its true, one needs to be in the right place at right time to be successful, at the same time growing as organization and delivering the results are also the key reasons for many start ups to grow as successful Organization.

The challenges and risks which they take in this path is enormous and not only technical, but also in the social ,economical and in governance areas. The existing standards and models for governance doesn’t really concentrate on the startups and their risks, however they give good practices for a stable or growing organization. Hence there is a need for start up companies to have easy to adopt and essential practices guidelines laid out by the Industry, which they can implement it embrace their growth. There is no guideline better than a growth oriented guideline for Startups, which also addresses many essential functions through governance system.

This is a guideline drafted for Growth and Governance Management System of Startups!

Growth and Governance Management System - Elements

Growth and Governance Establishment

• Establish Business Vision and Objectives• Assess the Business Risks• Prepare Short Terms Plans and Long Term Roadmap• Provide guidance and Decisions to manage growth• Connect and collaborate with Client and Investors• liaison with Third Parties and Government Agencies• Conduct Periodical Business Growth and Governance Meetings to

Verify the Progress and take appropriate actions.• Establish Measures ( Client, Compliance and Performance) and

Documents to support the Implementation of the entire System, as needed to the context.

This is also the Top Level Establishment which Verifies every other aspects mentioned in this guideline.

Legal and Financial Management

• Establish Intellectual Property Handling and Claiming• Identify and establish entity Registration and Compliance, as per

Statutory and Regulatory Requirements• Plan and establish financial asset handling• Manage investors and financial aids• Establish mechanism of Contractual Verification • Manage Supplier, third party, client and government related legal

aspects.

Resource Management

• Assess and Plan Resource Requirements and fulfilment– Human, Infrastructure, Supplier and others.

• Recruit competent Resources and Establish formal Joining and Exit formalities.

• Provide and/or guide Sources for Acquisition of Knowledge for resources

• Establish Suppliers and service providers as required and Check their quality of work on frequent basis.

• Ensure access to business critical facilities for development and delivery of product/service.

Development and Delivery System (Products/Services)

• Establish understanding of requirements over business and delivery aspects

• Set Targets and Mobilization of Resources to meet delivery requirements

• Provide Support and execute Development of Products/Service-offering

• Validate Development and Prepare for Delivery• Manage Delivery to Customers/clients/users and keep appropriate

evidences• Measure and analyse performance and Quality attributes to make

improvements, as required

Data Protection and Processing

• Assess the Data Protection and Processing Needs (client, government regulations, third party and Intellectual property, etc)

• Ensure adequacy of processing abilities (Capacity aligned with Demand, availability)

• Identify Critical Data and plan their protected storage• Establish Protected data processing with Secure physical

environment, Network Protection and other access control as required to the context.

• Ensure back up and retrieval of data on regular basis• Establish secured/assessed social media communication with

relevant aids.

How this guideline benefits to Start-ups

• It brings overall organization System view to start-up Companies• It targets the growth of start-ups and establishes governance to the

context required• It gives some of the key best practices described in International

Standards and models• The guidelines covers the important aspects like IPR, Financial

Management, Data Processing which are done informally in some organization which leads to failure in many cases.

• Context based controls and documentation can be set by the Start-ups

• Its an Overall umbrella of management system components which has to be thought about by start-ups to move from heroic action based progress to all around performance based progress

What it is not?

• A body of Knowledge for start-ups• An International standard or model to demonstrate conformity• A set of best practices required to demonstrate to show maturity or

capability• Addresses all the pain areas of start-ups• Country specific guideline or Code of Operations

Today’s Start-ups are

Tomorrows Giants!

Thank You!

(Guideline is in Development Stage)