I had a webinar a few months ago for one of the largest European automotive suppliers on the woes of getting into a customer-driven mindset. I won't share much on this as it was highly specific to this customer and dealing with a few things under NDA.

That being said, there's a general principle that size does matter. From startups to multinational groups, the hot zone of full market awareness gets smaller and smaller as the number of employees explodes upward.  

1. The market's light gets dimmer as scale grows.

Consolidating a growing cold core of support functions is not to blame per se. It is both necessary and unavoidable. Even for companies like Amazon that, deservedly so, brag about their nimbleness, rest assured that the finance or HR departments are not complying with the "two-pizza rule."And if you'd think that startups wouldn't love to have a fully staffed support team from day one, you probably never met an entrepreneur. Â