A business problem often gets named by the function where it becomes visible.
- An ecommerce team sees a conversion problem.
- A commercial team sees a growth problem.
- A supply team sees a stock problem.
- A marketing team sees a demand problem.
Each diagnosis can be correct. But none of them necessarily explains the whole problem. Sometimes, the hardest part is recognising that the business problem is not owned by the function where it becomes visible.
The Function Is Where the Problem Appears
This happens easily in businesses organised around functions.
- Performance is measured by channel.
- Budgets are allocated by function.
- Targets are assigned to teams.
So when something underperforms, the natural response is to optimise the part that owns the number.
- More traffic.
- Better conversion.
- More media.
- Better distribution.
- More stock.
But businesses do not operate in isolated functions.
A change in one part can alter the conditions somewhere else. More demand can create a supply constraint. More stock can create a commercial problem. More assortment can change consumer choice. A change in portfolio can change what ecommerce is able to sell.
The visible problem moves. The underlying system remains connected.
Growth Is Often a System, Not a Single Lever
One example made this particularly clear to me.
I worked on a category where the starting portfolio was only two SKUs, while the ambition was significant: 200% growth and moving from 30% to 70% share. The important lesson was not simply that the portfolio needed to expand. It was that the growth problem could not be solved by treating ecommerce, portfolio, consumer demand and commercial decisions as separate questions.
The category itself had limited consumer awareness and low existing consumer ask. The portfolio was not broad enough to cover enough needs or occasions. That constraint then became visible in ecommerce, where the business also had limitations around store visibility and how much the existing assortment could support.
The case is useful because it shows something broader: the channel was where the constraint became visible, but the constraint did not originate in the channel.
Optimising One Part Can Simply Move the Problem
This is why functional optimisation can sometimes produce a strange result. A team improves its own metric. But the business does not improve by the same amount.
The ecommerce team may increase transactions, while demand is simply being shifted from another channel.
The commercial team may push for more volume, while supply becomes the new constraint.
Marketing may create more demand, while the portfolio cannot adequately capture it.
Each function can report progress. The business can still feel stuck. The business problem is not that the teams are doing their jobs badly. The problem is that the unit being optimised is smaller than the problem being solved.
Start With the Real Business Problem
This is why I find it useful to step back before deciding which function should act. Instead of asking:
“Which team owns this problem?”
I would rather ask:
“What is actually constraining the business right now?”
That question changes the starting point. It forces us to look beyond the metric that first caught our attention.
Is the constraint demand?
Portfolio?
Supply?
Economics?
Consumer understanding?
Channel capability?
Commercial priorities?
Or some combination of them?
The answer may still require a functional solution. But the diagnosis starts with the business rather than the function.
The Role of Cross-Functional Thinking
Cross-functional thinking is sometimes reduced to collaboration:
Get the teams in the room.
Align everyone.
Communicate better.
But that is not the interesting part.
The real value is understanding how one decision changes the conditions for another part of the business.
Portfolio affects consumer choice.
Consumer choice affects demand.
Demand affects economics.
Economics affects where investment makes sense.
And execution determines whether the opportunity can actually be captured.
That is a system.
The goal is not to make every function responsible for everything. It is to understand the connections well enough to know where the real lever sits.
Solve the Constraint, Not Just the Symptom
A business can spend a lot of time improving the symptom because the symptom is easier to measure. But measurable does not always mean fundamental.
The ecommerce dashboard can tell us where performance changed. But a change in channel performance does not necessarily tell us what happened to the business overall.
The commercial plan can tell us what was sold.
The supply report can tell us what was available.
The consumer data can tell us what people did.
The harder part of solving a business problem is connecting those signals to understand why the business is behaving that way. That is where I think business thinking becomes different from functional optimisation.
You are no longer asking:
“How do I make my function perform better?”
You are asking:
“What needs to change for the business to perform better?”
That is often a better way to frame the business problem.
Sometimes the answer will sit inside your function. Sometimes it will not. And knowing the difference can be more valuable than optimising any single metric.
