Over the course of two days, dozens of businesspeople and entrepreneurs gathered in São Paulo to exchange ideas and learn about business growth, strategy, governance, sales and even people management, during the third edition of the immersion From Zero to Top Experience.
The result of a partnership between InfoMoneyXP Educação, XP Empresas and , the event focuses on helping companies move to the next level. Within this context, the guiding thread of the discussions was the need for transition to boost growth: companies and leaders need to evolve, abandoning what worked to embrace what is essential for the next stage.
The more than 15 panelists, including successful entrepreneurs and experts, spoke about “growing pains”. “The company changes phase and the leader needs to evolve along with it, understanding when to adapt their actions or pass the baton”, stated Guilherme Benchimol, one of this edition’s mentors.
One of the central lessons of this immersion was that the leader only advances when he is no longer irreplaceable. “Growing requires abandoning what you do well and getting into what you’ve never done. Entrepreneurs only move forward when they stop being irreplaceable”, says Bruno Paganin, from Galapos, another immersion panelist.
Likewise, Tiago Mendonça, CEO of ABC da Construção, reinforced that a well-defined strategy begins with clarity of where you are and where you are going.
Afterwards, in a panel on innovation, Daniel Prado, founder of Turbi, warned against complacency. For him, the competitive advantage is temporary, as technology accelerates replication.
Also read:
Continues after advertising
During the event, another episode of the podcast was recorded From Zero to Topwhich told the story of Ultra Pão: a company that managed to win international innovation awards by developing improvements for a product that has an ancient recipe: bread. Co-founded by Rafael Mendes, the company aims for revenue of R$800 million by 2030.
The episode, which will be published in the coming weeks, offered a pragmatic reminder for all businesses: before seeking differentiation, you need to survive. Only after ensuring the company’s viability is it possible to focus on improving margins.
On the second day, the three operational pillars to support a company’s strategy were dissected: people, finances and sales.
Continues after advertising
On the first point, panels that brought together big names converged on two main points: 1) Hiring the best team possible, as sophisticated people solve more problems and build more results; and 2) Autonomy without alignment creates disaster.
On the finance front, led by Vivian Sesto, Head of Commercial Actions XP Empresas, the message that remained was: the greater the internal efficiency in managing areas, the less exposure and dependence on uncontrollable and unpredictable external factors.
Finally, in the two panels that dealt with sales, the experts brought complementary conclusions: that growth depends on mastering multiple channels, and that the most important information in CRM is what is going wrong, as this is where one of the great opportunities for improvement lies.
Continues after advertising
“This immersion is just the beginning. We want you to change levels and reach the top. But always remember that the top must be rebuilt”, concluded Fábio Vitola, CEO and co-founder of Galapos.
