When Capacity Becomes the Competitive Advantage

Randall René, MBA
2 days ago
7 min read

Executive overlooking a city skyline from above, representing perspective and oversight across complex organizational systems.

For a long time, outsourcing carried a quiet stigma. It was framed as something organizations did when budgets were tight, when headcount had to be reduced, or when work could be pushed somewhere cheaper. I have watched leaders wrestle with that perception for years, even as the world around them has changed in very real ways. What stands out to me now is how disconnected that old framing has become from the reality most organizations are navigating today, where capacity becomes competitive advantage rather than a background concern.

Across telecommunications, broadband, utilities, and technology driven organizations, I don't see a lack of ambition or commitment, what I see is a lack of capacity. Teams are smaller than they were just a few years ago. Hiring is slower and more cautious, while at the same time, expectations have not come down. Organizations are being asked to do more, with fewer people, faster than ever before, while operating under increasing scrutiny from customers, regulators, and leadership. Networks still need to be expanded and maintained. GIS platforms still need to be trusted, governed, and extended beyond their original use cases. Data still needs to be cleaned, aligned, and turned into decisions leaders can stand behind. The work has not slowed down, but the room for error has narrowed significantly.

Aerial view of a parking structure nearly full, showing orderly rows and limited remaining capacity. — Constraint often shows up quietly, long before anything breaks.

When capacity gets tight, the impact is rarely dramatic at first. It shows up quietly, almost invisibly, in the day to day, as decisions take longer because the same people are pulled into every conversation. Projects do not fail outright, but they stall in the middle, where coordination and follow through matter most. Workarounds become the norm and temporary fixes become permanent, and adds to the technical debt in seemingly harmless ways. None of this happens because people are not capable or not trying hard enough. It happens because there are only so many hours in a day and only so much context any one team can realistically carry at once.

For years, the default response to this kind of pressure was simple. Hire more people or work your team longer hors. Build internal expertise and scale teams to match demand, yet in today’s environment, that response is often unrealistic. Senior talent takes time to find and even longer to onboard. The cost is long term, while the need is often uneven. In some cases, the expertise required is deep and specialized, but only needed at certain moments. In others, leaders are understandably hesitant to add permanent roles when the market still feels uncertain and unpredictable.

This is where the conversation needs to change.

When Capacity Becomes Competitive Advantage

Outsourcing today is not about replacing internal teams or cutting expenses, it's about extending capacity in a deliberate and thoughtful way. The most effective leaders I work with no longer think in terms of inside versus outside, they think in terms of coverage, continuity, and perspective. They accept that their organizations cannot be perfectly staffed for every scenario, and instead they design for flexibility.

In practice, this often looks like intentional incompleteness. Internal teams focus on ownership and execution, while external advisors bring experience, perspective, and the ability to see across silos without being consumed by daily firefighting. When demand spikes or complexity increases, the organization absorbs it without breaking. When things slow down, there is no excess structure to unwind, so capacity becomes elastic rather than brittle.

This shift is not just something I am seeing anecdotally. It is increasingly reflected in how the largest advisory firms in the world are analyzing the modern workforce and the risks organizations face when operating too close to their limits.

What the Data Is Telling Us

Over the past several years, research from Deloitte, PwC, EY, and KPMG has pointed to a consistent conclusion. What they've all confirmed is that traditional workforce models are struggling to keep up with the pace, complexity, and scrutiny facing modern organizations.

For instance, Deloitte’s work on what they describe as the boundaryless workforce highlights how work is now delivered through a mix of full time employees, contractors, partners, and advisors. Their research shows that organizations trying to meet every need through permanent headcount alone, often struggle with agility, burnout, and rising execution risk. The recommendation is not simply to outsource more, but to rethink how work gets done and who is best positioned to do it.

In another example, PwC’s CEO and several workforce surveys reinforce this from a leadership perspective. They show that executives consistently rank access to skills and execution capacity as one of their top concerns, often ahead of access to capital. What is striking is that this concern persists even during periods of economic uncertainty. The challenge is not just growth, it's the ability to execute and adapt when conditions change faster than organizational structures can respond.

Aerial view of a complex urban highway interchange at night, representing large-scale systems and interconnected flows. — Across complex systems, the limiting factor is rarely ambition. It is the capacity to execute and adapt at scale.

Ernst & Young has focused heavily on the operational side of this challenge, particularly in the context of digital transformation and data driven organizations. Their research shows that technology investments routinely underperform when organizations underestimate the ongoing effort required for adoption, governance, and change. They've shown that gap is rarely the platform itself, instead it's the sustained capacity to align people, processes, and decisions over time.

In one last analysis, KPMG adds another layer through its work on enterprise resilience and operational risk. They show that as organizations become more interconnected, execution risk increases when too much knowledge and responsibility sit with too few people. Thoughtfully used, external advisors help distribute that cognitive load and reduce dependency risk without weakening accountability.

Taken together, this research mirrors what I see in in today's workplace. Organizations today are not failing because they lack strategy or technology, they are struggling because their operating models have not evolved to match how work actually happens today.

Why GIS and Data Work Surface the Issue First

I see this happening especially clearly around GIS and data driven initiatives. Many organizations already have GIS and robust business systems in place, so the challenge is almost not necessarily the technology itself. What I see is that the challenge is alignment. GIS touches planning, engineering, operations, finance, customer experience, and leadership decision making. That reach can be both an organizations greatest strength, and its greatest challenge.

When capacity is sufficient, GIS can become a shared operational foundation, and data quality improves because someone has the time and authority to address issues end to end. Workflows align because there is space for coordination and governance, and leaders trust what they see because outputs are consistent and clearly connected to real decisions.

When capacity is constrained, GIS becomes reactive and organizational trust erodes. It responds to requests, but it struggles to mature and successfully meet the needs of the business. Data issues linger because no one owns them holistically, and different teams adapt the system to meet immediate needs, slowly fragmenting it over time. Lastly, leadership disengages not because GIS lacks value, but because it no longer provides clarity.

This is not a failure of effort or intent. It is a failure of sustained capacity.

The Difference Continuity Makes

One of the clearest distinctions I see between organizations that adapt well and those that stall is how they think about external support. Ultimately, project based help has its place, and defined scope engagements can deliver real value. That said, they are transactional by nature. This means each project requires re onboarding, reexplaining, and rebuilding trust. Context leaves when the engagement ends, and months later, the same challenges return and the same conversations begin again.

A pedestrian bridge extending straight toward the horizon, symbolizing continuity and sustained progress over time. — Sustained progress depends on what carries forward, not what gets restarted.

Retained support works differently, as continuity changes the dynamic. Context builds over time, as the advisor understands not just the systems, but how decisions are made, where friction exists, and what constraints leadership is navigating. That accumulated understanding becomes the real value. The organization moves faster not because there are more people involved, but because there is less confusion and less rework.

Even better for teams, this continuity also changes the quality of conversations as leaders are more willing to surface uncertainty. Teams are more open about constraints. Decisions improve because they are informed by perspective that spans functions and time, not just the issue of the moment.

Control, Ownership, and Trust

One concern I hear often is the fear of losing control. That concern is legitimate, and the fear is derived from an assumption that outsourcing means handing over responsibility or weakening accountability. In practice, the opposite is usually true when external support is designed well. I like to say that organizations keep the strategic decision making inside, and leverage external resources for the heavy lifting and tactical execution where needed.

Decision authority stays with leadership, and accountability stays with internal teams. External advisors exist to help bring perspective, ask difficult questions, and help connect dots that are hard to see from inside the demands of the day to day. Rather than eroding control, this often strengthens it by making tradeoffs clearer and risks more visible.

The organizations that do this well treat external advisors as part of the normal operating rhythm, not an exception reserved for crisis moments. Ultimately, the outside perspective becomes a source of stability rather than a signal of trouble.

Where Waypoint 33 Fits

Waypoint 33 was built for the reality of today's marketplace and workplace demands. Not as a traditional consulting firm and not as a vendor, but as a source of sustained capacity and perspective. Much of the work I do today takes the form of strategy sessions, ongoing advisory support, and coaching around enterprise GIS strategy, network planning, data readiness, and organizational alignment, and wherever we can we take on some of the heavy lifting. The value does not come from one off deliverables, it comes from continuity, trust, and the ability to pick up conversations where they left off rather than starting from scratch each time.

Remember, in today’s environment, cost is rarely the true constraint. Capacity is. The organizations that recognize this and design for it intentionally are better positioned to navigate complexity without burning out the people carrying the work.

Let's Talk

Every journey starts with a conversation. If you would like to explore how these ideas could fit your strategy, I would love to connect. You can reach me directly at randall@waypoint33.com.

~Randall René, Founder and Chief Consultant, Waypoint 33