Ten top tips to scaling up your business
Ten top tips to scaling up your business
Businesses often start successfully by launching a new product or service and establishing routes to market, but then fail to achieve their potential and see growth and profits plateau. Scaling a business drives up value, attracts investment and builds resilience, but it requires a combination of factors to do it successfully. Many of the most successful businesses share common traits. Drawing on our extensive experience of helping business owners and founders up and down the country across all industry sectors, we've created our top ten tips to help you scale-up your business effectively:
Scaling-up a business is a complex process, which requires deeper resource, wider skills and alternative viewpoints as the business evolves. It also requires a willingness to look back and learn lessons quickly ("fast fail"). Regularly assessing and adjusting strategies based on market feedback and emerging trends will ensure agility, adaptability and sustainable growth. At BDO we have developed a diagnostic tool to assess how your business is performing and areas you need to focus on to achieve your goals. It’s free of charge and you can access it here.
1. A clear vision and strategy
Recognising there is a difference between a strategy for the business, and not just the product, will help break through growth barriers. A clear vision and well thought out strategy provides direction and purpose. It helps align the team and stakeholders towards common goals and focuses decision-making. Many start-ups obsess about their initial idea or offering but then fail to seize growth opportunities and are over-exposed to one market. It is important to remember that investors focus on businesses, not just products. Designing a business able to scale will be more attractive to investors and enable diversification into new markets, building resilience in an ever-changing world.2. Strong management team
Effective leadership is crucial for scaling up your business. Leaders should possess the ability to inspire and motivate teams, make strategic decisions, manage resources efficiently and adapt to changing market conditions. No one person can do that in a complex business. As the business evolves, it will need to move from being founder-led to having a more diverse management team, ensuring new skills are brought in. Advisory boards may also help bring in wider experience to inform the board as they look to scale-up and transition.3. Data-led decision making
All too often business owners fail to check facts and data regarding the business performance and challenges. Understanding what is profitable, what customers value, external market trends, performance, efficiency, return on investment and other similar areas is sadly too often ignored and replaced by instincts or gut-feel which can be flawed. Developing a clear understanding of business drivers, and capturing relevant data will ensure the right decisions are made at the right time.4. Market Differentiation
To scale-up successfully, a business must have a unique value proposition that differentiates it from competitors. Most business will lead on at least one of these key factors: relationship, expertise/IP or value. Identifying and capitalising on a gap in the market, offering innovative solutions, and providing exceptional customer experiences can help to gain a competitive edge. Key to this is really understanding your value proposition and customers - what it is they truly value in you? Be obsessive about meeting customers’ needs.5. Access to finance
Adequate funding is crucial for scaling up your operation, allowing you to invest in infrastructure, expand marketing efforts, hire talented employees, and pursue new opportunities. When securing funding through private equity, venture capital or other sources to fuel growth, it is important to identify clearly how the funding will achieve that growth. Developing dynamic forecasts and identifying the real business drivers and steps will allow actions to be monitored and spend to be allocated correctly. A well-designed forecast will use these drivers to enable "what-if" analysis to understand headroom and sensitivity, and ensure adequate funding is obtained.6. Talent strategy
Building a talented and dedicated team is essential. Recruit individuals who possess the required skills and expertise, and who share the vision and values of the company. Don’t presume the original team will be the same people who will take your business to the next phase and address barriers head on. At the same time, losing skilled staff can cost your business much more than the cost of recruiting new staff - it will also lead to lost knowledge and relationships.7. Efficient operations and processes
Agility is key in an ever-more challenging world and so streamlining internal operations, removing waste (or inefficiency) and refining processes to improve productivity can give your business a competitive advantage. Implement scalable systems, automate repetitive tasks, and leverage technology to optimise resource allocation, inventory management, and customer service. Also be prepared to refocus business resources where they will achieve the most impact – the business will need to adapt and change as it scales-up.8. Customer focus
Prioritise customer satisfaction and continuously improve customer experience. Listen to customer feedback, address their needs, and adapt products or services accordingly. Loyal customers can become brand advocates and help drive growth through referrals. As you scale your businesses you may also have multiple markets. It is important to understand the different customer needs and dynamics and adapt how you go to market.9. Strategic partnerships
As the business evolves, not everything has to be done by the finite resources in the team. Identifying strategic partners who are equally ambitious for your growth is important. An agile business may find it quicker to partner with established players to avoid investing scarce resource and effort, and de-risk non-core activities. Strategic partners can also provide opportunities for growth, access to resources, and shared expertise. At BDO we pride ourselves on being focused on helping growing buinesses to scale, and are a lead supporter of the Scale Up Institute.10. Keep adapting
Too often business owners and founders become internally facing focused on what they are doing and how they are performing. This risks letting the competition steal your market, or changing customer needs being missed and can lead to businesses plateauing or declining. The board should allocate adequate time for horizon scanning and monitoring threats and opportunities. Your competition will adapt and change, so must you. Stay ahead by continuously evolving and improving offerings.Scaling-up a business is a complex process, which requires deeper resource, wider skills and alternative viewpoints as the business evolves. It also requires a willingness to look back and learn lessons quickly ("fast fail"). Regularly assessing and adjusting strategies based on market feedback and emerging trends will ensure agility, adaptability and sustainable growth. At BDO we have developed a diagnostic tool to assess how your business is performing and areas you need to focus on to achieve your goals. It’s free of charge and you can access it here.