Every Board approves investment in structure. Almost none approves the time it takes to stand up

Every Board approves investment in structure. Almost none approves the time it takes to stand up.

Between 2013 and 2015 I was scaling the network of auto repair shops. The bottleneck was not demand, it was payroll growing in a disorderly way. I lacked standardized labor, and training was not my field. I went to Bosch do Brasil. The negotiation went up to Germany and took about two years, format after format, until a franchise emerged as the only model they controlled. Approval only came after a German executive came to see the operation with his own eyes. Then there were still three months of contract and construction.

The expensive part was not setting up the school. It was forbidding myself to grow while the operation got ready, in a period when volume was already falling. Two years paying before receiving anything.

The structure built during the wait funded the next phase: thirty percent less labor per store, twenty percent more productivity, and expansion carried by people who were already in house.

Structure has a construction lead time, and it does not start on the day of the decision. If your company will need one in 2027 and it is still on paper, the delay is already contracted. That math fits in one conversation, and it is better to do it before it reaches the bottom line.