Sustainable Growth Framework for Medical Device Design Consultancy - £6960

Fearsome began with 2 staff in 2005 as a general engineering design consultancy executing a small number of simple development projects across several industry sectors. At its inception, Fearsome was structured as a professional practice as was appropriate for a small company at an early stage.. However Fearsome has since grown now employing 30 direct staff. It now specialises in medical device design specifically in distinct fields including ophthalmology, drug delivery and neurosurgery. The development projectsFearsome currently executes are now larger in scale and scope and much more complex in execution. To accommodate this growth the structure of the company has evolved organically from its initial simple professional structure to become a more complex matrix structure. While this structure is more appropriate, it is still immature and requires further development as it currently presents challenges for capacity planning and resource allocation, project portfolio management, business growth and strategic planning and skills development and recruitment. Fearsome is working at capacity within a buoyant market with many opportunities, but its growth is being restricted as it lacks the ability to effectively scale its organisation to simultaneously capture new business and efficiently execute its current business. As a project-based SME working on cutting edge technologies within a complex market sector there are no off-the-shelf business modelling and organisational structuring solutions available which can be imported on, for example, a consultancy basis to meet Fearsome’s needs. There are several unusual features which make Fearsome’s challenges difficult to address with current thinking. First, the structuring of an SME organisation working on Research and Development is difficult as resources are typically more constrained than in larger organisations, so standard techniques for specifying an engineering division of labour are less effective. Second, allocation of separate direct and overhead roles is often difficult requiring a multilateral approach to capacity planning. Third, the separation of strategic and operational functions is often impossible, requiring more flexible resource allocation techniques. These and other challenges mean that a custom organisational structure and business model is required. Uniquely these challenges are made more acute as Fearsome exists within the Medical Technology sector, a speciality niche which deals directly with patient ergonomics. This is itself an emerging discipline where few standard models of product development exist. The research being carried out within Strathclyde Business School on complex, project-based business structures and the integration of project and operational work types will allow Fearsome to develop an organisational structure and business model that will allow it to execute its current business efficiently and effectively grow its revenue stream within an evolving market.