Mid-Market Strategy: Legacy Systems and the Cost of Inaction
When Growth Outpaces Systems, Strategy Has to Catch Up
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Maven Associates helps leaders prioritize investments, shape strategy, and capture opportunities others miss. Learn more at www.maven-associates.com.
Welcome back everyone!
In mid-market companies, growth often outpaces the systems that support it.
We see it time and again. Businesses double in size while still running on legacy tools, ad hoc pricing, and outdated procurement processes. It’s a testament to grit and customer focus. But it also creates friction, margin leakage, and hidden risk.
Now is the time to reassess. With costs rising, AI-enabled tools reshaping workflows, and capital markets rewarding discipline, operational misalignment isn’t just a drag. It’s a liability.
This quarter, we’re sharing how Maven helped a fast-growing client tackle that exact challenge by driving improvements across IT, pricing, and SG&A.
If you’re scaling fast and sensing friction, this is the kind of moment that separates forward-looking operators from everyone else.
Field Notes: Turning Operational Friction into Scalable Growth
WorldStrides was growing fast. With hundreds of travel programs and a global customer base, the business had momentum, but also complexity.
Underneath the top-line growth, systems were aging.
IT was fragmented across functions.
Purchasing lacked coordination.
Pricing varied widely by business line.
The structure that once supported the company had started to constrain it.
Maven was brought in to run a full operational assessment. We worked with leaders across functions to pinpoint inefficiencies and build a roadmap to unlock value.
The results:
A digital transformation strategy that consolidated systems and improved data access
Streamlined SG&A that brought spending in line with business scale
A pricing discipline framework that added structure and accountability across programs
These efforts didn’t just reduce friction. They created leverage. Within two years, WorldStrides grew from $300M to over $600M in revenue—this time with a cost structure and operating model built for scale.
The takeaway: In mid-market companies, growth often reveals what needs to change. The right strategy turns those pressure points into catalysts.
Thinking Through a Major Strategic Move?
Whether you’re reevaluating your footprint, assessing product-market fit, or considering how to position your business for the next phase of growth, we’d be glad to help.
Want to talk through a strategic decision? Send me a message on LinkedIn or visit maven-associates.com/contact-us to connect.
When Systems Stop Scaling
In many mid-market companies, legacy systems hang on longer than they should. They get patched, reconfigured, and extended to keep up with growth. And for a while, it works.
But eventually, these systems start showing their limits.
Teams rely on manual workarounds. Data gets siloed. Pricing models become hard to maintain. Decisions take longer.
The business scales, but the systems don’t keep up.
This creates two risks.
First, a drag on performance that shows up as margin leakage or customer friction.
Second, a structural risk that compounds over time, especially in businesses making acquisitions or entering new markets.
That’s why smart operators are no longer waiting for systems to break. They’re investing in visibility—scenario planning, operational diagnostics, and cross-functional audits—to see where the gaps are.
They’re also asking how to modernize in ways that create near-term efficiency and long-term flexibility.
With the rise of AI-native tools and integrated platforms, the economics of upgrading have changed. It’s no longer just a cost center. Done right, it becomes a strategic advantage.
If your systems are showing signs of strain, this is the moment to get ahead of it.
How We Uncover Value Others Miss
At Maven, we specialize in helping companies solve complex operational problems that sit beneath the surface.
Whether it’s misaligned systems, unclear pricing discipline, or SG&A layers that no longer fit the business, we help clients get clear on what’s holding them back—and what to do about it.
In the WorldStrides engagement, the question started with SG&A. But it quickly became clear that IT systems, purchasing, and pricing were all contributing to friction. Each issue on its own was manageable. Together, they were limiting scale
What sets our approach apart:
Cross-functional diagnostics grounded in strategic logic We don’t just optimize a function. We uncover how inefficiencies interact—and where the leverage points are.
Focused, execution-ready roadmaps We give clients practical, sequenced actions that teams can execute—not just analysis.
We go beyond the original ask We identify value drivers others miss, from pricing discipline to technology modernization.
When clients need to rethink their structure, we give them more than a model. We give them a roadmap.
Want to talk through a strategic decision? Send me a message on LinkedIn or visit maven-associates.com/contact-us to connect.
This is What We Do
We work with mid-market companies when the stakes are high and the picture is unclear. That might mean untangling cost drivers in SG&A, evaluating whether a system upgrade is worth the investment, or aligning leadership around how to scale without losing margin.
Our role is to bring clarity to complex questions—and to help smart teams move from symptoms to strategy.
Here’s where we focus:
Market insight and commercial strategy When you need to know if your market position still makes sense—or if it’s time to adjust.
Answering deal- or decision-critical questions We dig into the assumptions that really matter, whether it’s about a forecast, a product bet, or a cost decision.
Annual planning and team offsites Helping leadership teams get aligned on what matters and turn strategy into a practical game plan.
We’re not here to sell frameworks. We’re here to help smart people make better calls—when it counts.
Top-tier strategy talent, built for the mid-market.
One of Maven Associates’ greatest strengths is connecting clients with leaders who bring both strategic insight and operational depth. Huntley Tarrant is one such consultant.
With a career spanning Bain & Company, Vista Equity Partners, and leadership roles across SaaS, fintech, and consumer startups, Huntley combines analytical rigor with hands-on execution.
She has led strategy and operations for portfolio companies, run large P&Ls, and guided organizations through M&A integrations and systems overhauls.
At Maven, Huntley has been helping with AI readiness and operational transformation, helping mid-market companies assess data infrastructure, process maturity, and organizational design to unlock real business value.
As she puts it, “There’s no problem I can’t solve. There’s no project I can’t handle. There’s no program I can’t make work.”
In mid-market companies, growth and margin often hide in plain sight—buried in outdated systems, loose pricing, or cost structures built for a different stage of the business.
The companies that win are the ones willing to step back, reassess, and realign before friction becomes failure.
If you’re thinking about pricing, SG&A, or whether your current systems are ready for what’s next, we’d be glad to talk it through.
Thanks for reading, and as always, we appreciate your partnership.
-Mark Hess