As a business owner, it is only natural that growing the business is the key motivation. Business can grow in terms of number of sales, the amount of revenue, the size of market footprint or even the number of customer base you have. Some would say when their business is making more profit this year, and then they would claim their business is growing. This delusion is not just a misleading statement but also a useful tool used to cover up the plummeting sales.
Depending on which sector you are in, the growth rate would be different. Growth rate also depends on the lifetime of your business. A new start up will easily garner 10% -15% growth rate compared to businesses that are already 4-8 years in business. An online start up can easily grow by 300% if you consider the amount of traffic going to the website.
I just plucked the numbers out of my head. I don't have any reference for that ;-)
Why grow my business?
....Why not?
Some small enterprise owners choose to just settle to whatever they have right now. This is normally the case in the area where there are not much economic vibrancy e.g. traditional residential area like kampungs.
While this is not always the case in bigger cities, some enterprise owners just cannot articulate the need to grow their business.
The actual fact is, small and medium enterprises make up the whole bulk of country's economy. The growth of SMEs will then be cascaded into country's economic growth which then give a huge impact in overall well being of the society.
Besides that, by growing your business (depends on how you want to grow it) you can tap into more resources and expertise plus unlocking the value of your business.
Now do you feel like wanting to grow?
How to grow my business?
1) Through merger
Merging two or more enterprises into one single entity is not an easy feat as it sounds. Merging businesses needs a lot of efforts and wills from all affected parties. All the roles and responsibilities have to be clear and well defined, because at the end of the day you don't want to see one or the other get a free ride.
2) Acquiring another business
Identify another business that has the synergy with your business. For example, if your a pizza company, you might want to consider acquiring flour manufacturing company instead of acquiring a company that makes the pizza box.
Or, acquiring another pizza company would be easier.
3) Organic growth
This is the slowest path of them all. Growing organically means putting all your sweats and tears plus all your monies to grow your business through means of opening new branch, revving up marketing force, capturing bigger market, launching new products and up selling services and products to current customers. This path although the slowest, it would bring the best out of the organisation should the growth target is achieved.
End of year
End of year
2014 is ending and businesses are already charting courses to brace through another challenging year. The organisation I am working with has the following target to achieve by 2020:
1. Grow core business by 10%
2. New product to churn 20% of total revenue
3. Integrated services to provide 30% of total revenue
Some analysis:
By growing at such rate in five years time the business will be 60% bigger than it is today so that makes 160% of current size, and adding in no. 2 and no. 3 target which are pratically the same size as the core business...
revenue from core business + 20% + 30% = total revenue
160% + 50% of x = x
x = total revenue = 2 x 160% = 320%
=)
So, what growth target do you have now?
