No stopping on the road to success

Jan 9 2008 By Christopher Knox

The top tips for business growth

By Rachel Moss of Business Link

Prepare a business plan for growth

You will need to revisit and update your business plan with your new strategy in mind and make sure you introduce the developments you’ve noted. Your business plan can now be changed from a static document into a dynamic template that will help your business both survive and thrive.

Assess current performance

It’s essential to assess how well your business is performing, highlighting your strengths and areas that could be improved and suggesting the actions you need to take to implement the improve-ments that you’ve identified.

Plan how to grow

Options include increasing your market share, exploiting your ideas commercially, developing new products and services, increasing your profitability, buying an existing business, turning your business into a franchise and planning for e-commerce.

Financing growth

Choosing and securing the right type of finance for your business is essential. There are many different types of finance available – each of them designed to meet different needs. Options include equity finance, debt factoring, floating on the stock market, selling shares in your company, loans and over-drafts, joint ventures and partnering and mergers and acquisitions.

Leading staff through growth

Options for meeting your new needs could include out-sourcing or training existing staff or recruiting new staff – whichever way you choose to do it, it will always mean some form of investment for your business.

Growth through technology

E-commerce plays an increasingly important role in the way in which products and services are purchased. E-commerce systems such as your website can be used to market and sell to customers, and to provide after-sales support.

Growth through sales and marketing

Developing a marketing strategy for growth is vital for any business looking to expand. The focus of your strategy should be to make sure that your products and services meet customer needs better than those of competitors and develop long-term and profitable relationships with customers. It may also help you to identify whole new markets that you can successfully target.