Case Study · Technology Services
Fractional COO Engagement During Rapid Scale
The Challenge
A technology services company had grown from 80 to 160 employees in 18 months following a Series C, but its operations had not scaled with the business. The CEO was spending 60% of her time on internal firefighting rather than customer relationships and strategic growth. There was no COO, processes were ad hoc, and the company had missed two major delivery deadlines in the prior quarter.
Our Approach
Operational Audit
In the first 30 days, we mapped every core operational process — project intake, resource allocation, delivery, billing, and customer success — and identified where the business was losing time and money. We found 14 significant process gaps or breakdowns, four of which were directly responsible for the delivery misses.
Fractional COO Engagement
We took on the fractional COO role for the company, attending executive team meetings, running the weekly ops review, and owning the cross-functional processes. This gave the CEO her time back immediately while we rebuilt the operating model underneath.
Operating Model Redesign
We redesigned the project management and resource allocation process, implemented a capacity planning model, rebuilt the delivery milestone and escalation framework, and put in place a customer health scoring system that gave CS and delivery early warning of at-risk accounts.
Org Design and Handoff
As the operating model stabilized, we worked with the CEO to design the permanent COO role and the org structure it required. We supported the search process and provided a 90-day onboarding plan for the incoming COO, including full documentation of the systems we had built.
The Outcome
Over a 10-month engagement, the company reduced operational costs by 22% while growing headcount by 60% — a significant improvement in operational leverage. Delivery on-time rate improved from 71% to 94%. The CEO reported spending less than 20% of her time on internal operations by month six. The permanent COO was placed in month nine and ramped successfully using the operating model HornToad Group had built.
“They identified operational bottlenecks we'd been blind to for two years and fixed them in 90 days. Having a fractional COO with real operator experience — not just a consultant — made all the difference.”
— CEO, Mid-Market Technology Services Firm
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