I.T. challenges for Expansion Stage companies

In the I.T. world, there are two camps when it comes to the maturity of the I.T. Environment. Those camps are the Start-up stage and the Enterprise stage. There are many books and guidelines that have been published on setting up and running an I.T. Environment in the Enterprise.

At the Start-up stage the environment generally begins in the basement of a company founder’s parents house, and then moves from there as the business grows. Maybe adding equipment or services as needed, but not really with a plan. The I.T. Department doesn’t even exist, it’s made up of engineers that also serve as the support staff.

Then there is the Enterprise I.T. Department which is made up of seasoned I.T. Professionals with many years of experience. The infrastructure is designed well, everything labeled and documented.

Now we get to the Expansion Stage, which has secured venture capital funding. There’s no real guideline for how to get from Start-up to Expansion Stage, and hopefully with a good company exit strategy, on to the Enterprise level for the I.T. environment. This is one of the areas that the Value Add team of OpenView Venture Partners strives to help with. By utilizing our years of experience, we can assist in getting the infrastructure to a very scalable stage so that when exit time comes, the company and its infrastructure can easily be integrated into any company.