Scaling with Confidence: What Mid-Sized Companies Get Right (and Wrong)

Check the foundations

Growth puts pressure on the way an organization makes decisions, serves customers and manages resources. Review those foundations before assuming more activity will produce better results.

Margin is carrying growth right now

The Golub Capital Altman Index, released October 13, showed median earnings at private middle-market companies up 6.9% year over year in the third quarter, against revenue growth of 3.5%. It was the first time since the second quarter of 2025 that earnings outpaced revenue by that much.

Costs have not eased. In RSM’s Middle Market Business Index (September 22), 75% of companies said they paid higher prices and 70% expected to raise their own. For many mid-sized firms, the next stage of growth depends on pricing and productivity as much as on volume.

Hiring is the weak link

Chief Executive’s October survey of 321 US CEOs found that 85% expect higher revenue in 2027, but only 37% expect to have more employees by the end of this year, down from 45% a month earlier. Hiring was the weakest of their forecasts.

The fastest growers do the opposite. The National Center for the Middle Market’s report on 15 years of middle-market growth found that the highest-growth companies increased their workforce by 17% in 2025, against 5% for the rest.

Set targets and invest ahead of them

The same report found that companies growing more than 10% a year were more than twice as likely to set formal annual growth targets (66% against 31% in its baseline study). The lever they invest in also changes over time: acquisitions in 2012 to 2015, hiring in 2016 to 2019 and research and development in 2021 to 2024. Check whether this year’s budget still funds the right one.

Keep learning as you scale

Review capacity and quality alongside revenue or volume. As the organization changes, revisit roles, systems and priorities so the operating model can grow with it.