Before You Hire Another Agency: Diagnose What’s Actually Constraining Growth -> A Diagnostic for Scaleups

When growth slows in a £10m+ business or scaleup, the instinct is often to book a call with your performance agency to discuss campaign optimisation. But research consistently shows that stalled growth is more commonly caused by unclear positioning, weak brand salience or leadership misalignment than channel inefficiency.

The OSER Growth Diagnostic helps leadership teams identify structural growth constraints before investing further in execution.

Growth Rarely Stalls Because of Effort

When momentum dips, most businesses respond with activity: more media spend, more campaigns, more experimentation, and, in some cases, a new agency.

But execution amplifies whatever system already exists.

If your positioning is blurred, performance spend scales confusion. If leadership priorities are fragmented, marketing becomes reactive. If brand salience is weak, CAC rises quarter by quarter.

The issue isn’t usually effort.

This isn’t just opinion. McKinsey research shows companies with strong organisational alignment significantly outperform peers on revenue growth and profitability. Misalignment at the leadership level directly slows execution and dilutes commercial impact.

Harvard Business Review has repeatedly identified a lack of strategic clarity as one of the primary reasons scaling organisations fail to execute effectively.

Meanwhile, IPA effectiveness studies (Binet & Field) demonstrate that brands investing in long-term brand building alongside short-term activation deliver materially stronger profit growth than businesses relying heavily on performance marketing alone.

WARC analysis further links strong differentiation and brand salience to pricing power and improved marketing efficiency.

And Bain’s research on scaling organisations highlights how complexity increases as companies grow - slowing decision speed unless structure and clarity evolve.

In short:

Alignment drives speed.

Differentiation drives efficiency.

Clarity drives profitability.

Without those foundations, execution becomes expensive.

The Three Structural Drivers of Sustainable Growth: A Diagnostic for Scaleups

At OSER, we’ve distilled this into three interconnected systems that determine whether growth compounds or fragments.

At the centre sits Sustainable Growth, which depends on:

1 > Strategic Core

Is your positioning sharp?

Is the market clearly defined?

Is your differentiation meaningful and defensible?

2 > Growth Engine

Are you building demand, not just harvesting it?

Is brand salience compounding?

Are channels aligned to strategy?

3 > Organisational Power

Is leadership aligned?

Are decisions coherent across departments?

Is marketing connected to commercial reality?

When one of these pillars weakens, growth slows, but when all three align, growth compounds.

Why OSER Is Strategy-First

OSER was built after years inside global agencies and boardrooms, where big-agency rigour often failed to translate into real-world scale-up complexity.

Global frameworks are powerful, but scaling businesses don’t operate like corporates.

They operate under capital pressure, speed pressure and structural change.

So we brought that level of strategic discipline to ambitious £10m+ businesses, scaleups, and investor-backed companies, while adapting it to real-world growth dynamics.

We sit at the leadership table, not in the agency mix, because marketing symptoms often mask strategic causes.

What the Growth Diagnostic Actually Does

The OSER Growth Diagnostic helps founders, CEOs and boards identify what is truly constraining growth before investing further in execution.

It doesn’t replace agencies - it makes them more effective.

In some cases, this clarity is delivered through strategic advisory or Fractional CMO leadership. For investor-backed companies, this clarity directly impacts capital efficiency and long-term enterprise value.

For founder-led growth businesses, it protects against scaling the wrong system.

When companies skip diagnosis, they:

• Increase spend without structural improvement

• Rotate agencies without solving the root issue

• Over-index on short-term performance.Dilute differentiation.Fragment internally.

Growth doesn’t collapse overnight. It erodes. Slowly.

Take Growth Diagnostic

Research & Sources

This perspective draws on widely published research from McKinsey & Company on organisational alignment and performance; Harvard Business Review on strategic clarity and execution; IPA Effectiveness studies (including Binet & Field) on long-term brand investment and profit growth; WARC analysis on brand salience and pricing power; and Bain & Company research on scaling complexity and leadership alignment.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a growth diagnostic for scaleups?

A growth diagnostic is a structured assessment that identifies the underlying strategic, brand and organisational constraints limiting sustainable growth.

Why does leadership alignment affect growth speed?

Research from McKinsey and Harvard Business Review shows that companies with strong organisational alignment execute faster, outperform competitors on revenue growth and maintain stronger profitability.

How does brand salience impact profitability?

IPA and WARC effectiveness research demonstrate that businesses investing in long-term brand building achieve stronger profit growth and reduced reliance on short-term performance marketing.

When should a £10m+ business run a growth diagnostic?

When growth plateaus, CAC rises, positioning feels unclear or internal priorities become fragmented.

Is a growth diagnostic different from hiring a marketing agency?

Yes. A diagnostic identifies structural constraints before execution. Agencies typically focus on channel optimisation and campaign delivery.

Can investor-backed companies benefit from a growth diagnostic?

Yes. Clear strategic alignment improves capital efficiency, valuation strength and long-term enterprise value.

What is OSER, and how can they help scaleups grow?

OSER is a strategy-first growth consultancy working with ambitious £10m+ businesses, scaleups and investor-backed companies. We partner with founders, CEOs and leadership teams to diagnose what’s truly constraining growth - across strategy, brand, demand and organisational alignment - and turn that clarity into focused commercial momentum.