The Duality of Business Growth and Technical Complexity: Overcoming the Complexity Cost of Rapid Growth

In the fast-paced world of high-demand industries and scale-ups, rapid business growth is the norm. These companies often exhibit common traits: they can swiftly scale operations, embrace agile methodologies, and adapt to market shifts on the fly. However, amidst this rapid expansion, a subtle yet significant threat lurks in the shadows: technical complexity. Like a double-edged sword, the very strategies that drive businesses forward can also sow the seeds of their downfall, due to the increased system and data complexity that is accumulated in response to the rapid expansion.

The situation is comparable to financial gearing: Just as businesses take on high ratios of debt to gain financial leverage, organizations often trade the accrual of technical debt for speed of implementation with the hope that future returns will cover remediation. The difference, however, lies in the fact that technical debt is rarely repaid – at least not before it is deemed critical to the business, and by then, it is often too late.

The consequence of neglecting the increased system and data complexity while scaling the business can be fatal – or put directly – may result in “technical death”. This slow demise occurs as layers of complexity accumulate over time. The complexity is often disguised as quick wins, or “frantic interventions” aimed at meeting tight deadlines or hitting short-term market targets. While these efforts may have secured the bonus of the project team that managed to deliver on time and within the budget, the long-term consequences of neglecting complexity can be severe.

The aftermath of these short-sighted decisions will most likely haunt future projects and operations, as they contribute to the hidden cost of complexity, which can have significant long-term ramifications for the organization’s ability to scale and grow.

So, can complexity be avoided?

Not entirely. The nature of IT is inherently complex. But there are still things you can do.

When addressing technical complexity, it is essential to distinguish between intentional and unintentional complexity.

Intentional complexity, designed with intention, encompasses elements necessary for fulfilling the business purpose and adding tangible value. This complexity is often well-documented, predictable, and can be strategically managed and ‘tamed’.

Conversely, unintentional complexity often accumulates organically over time and leads to unnecessary costs and complications without delivering direct business benefits, aside from short-term gains such as reduced time-to-market. Unintentional complexity is often expressed by obscurity, inconsistency, and unforeseeable consequences. For a detailed comparison between intentional and unintentional complexity across various dimensions, see the table below.

Dimension	Intentional complexity	Unintentional complexity
Origin	Arises from long-term strategic planning to support business logic	Accumulated without clear business intent or long-term strategy
Nature	Purposeful, strategic, and top-down approach	Reactive, short-term focused, and bottom-up accumulation
Business Value	Differentiating business value (i.e. competitive advantages)	Short-sighted gains (e.g. faster delivery)
Manageability	Strategically planned around and accounted for	Unpredictable consequences and behaviors
Documentation	Well-documented	Typically, not documented
Solution Approach	Long-term solutions addressing strategic business needs	Short-term, urgent fixes to mitigate immediate challenges
Consequences	Supports sustainable business growth	Often leads to unnecessary costs and complications

Whether the complexity is intentional or unintentional the cost of complexity is inevitable and must be paid off at some point in time. As components, platforms, and applications are added, integrated, and changed, the number of dependencies, limitations, and potential sources of error increases, as well as the required effort for maintaining and expanding – resulting in an added overhead in the total cost of ownership for IT – i.e., the complexity cost.

A high degree of complexity can have several negative consequences including:

• Decreased Agility/Flexibility – the ability and speed to innovate and change.
• Decreased Maintainability – the ability to efficiently operate applications and infrastructure.
• Decreased Controllability – the ability to oversee and govern IT to ensure security and compliance.
• Complicated Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery – the ability to react and recover from operational disruptions and security incidents.

Furthermore, as many of these aspects intersect and interact, the cost of complexity often becomes self-reinforcing. When left uncontrolled, complexity can quickly overwhelm the IT organization, tying them up in constant operational tasks and firefighting.

You may think paying this cost and focusing on your growth journey as usual can be a resolution, as these are just IT issues, right? As the business grows it becomes impossible to separate IT issues from the business as they are inextricably linked and should thus be addressed holistically and not in silos.

If IT and the business fail to cooperate in effectively managing the complexity cost, the repercussions for the business can be catastrophic. This failure to timely address technical complexity will ultimately result in what’s referred to as “technical death” [A], where the burden of accumulated complexity overwhelms the organization’s ability to adapt and innovate, inevitably leading to its downfall as illustrated below.

To bend the curve of technical complexity, it is crucial to consider three key steps:

Addressing these three steps— 1) Stop the Bleeding, 2) Regain Momentum, and 3) Design for Sustainable Speed— will ensure continuous and effective tackling of technical complexity and provide the best conditions for continued business growth.

As a final remark, it is important to acknowledge that aligning business growth with IT complexity is a shared responsibility. Even though, the mentioned obstacles might be seen as simply IT-related problems, they are not just IT’s problem.

The business needs to understand that rapid business growth has an impact on IT complexity and accept the associated cost – or they risk becoming constrained by the very IT that helped them grow and ultimately suffer a technical death.

The longer you wait to bend the curve – the more effort, cost, and time are required to do so. If you are already struggling with a high degree of complexity, IT will require help and resources to regain control.

Are you curious to learn more about your complexity curve? The following curve can be used as inspiration to determine your current position along the complexity curve and whether you should start bending the curve.

To get started, list your top-most critical business applications, and ask the following: Can they easily be changed or modified? If yes – GREAT! If not, can you explain why changes or modifications are challenging without primarily considering technical reasons? Evidently this is an oversimplified root-cause “analysis”. However, if business application changes are challenging mainly due to technical rather than non-technical reasons, this is an indicator of a high complexity curve score, and it might be time to start bending.

The article was co-written by Frederik Hørby Søborg, Christoffer Møller Jarolics, and Steffan Winther Johansen. If you want to hear more about technical complexity – feel free to reach out or follow our LinkedIn for more interesting perspectives!