Expanding your business is an inevitable task that at one point or another, your small business will have to undertake. ‘Going global’ is defined as the world moves forward to increased economic, financial and trade becoming rounded and integrating with one another. The concept of globalization has been on the tips of the tongues of many politicians, and market experts have also expressed that this concept, may be the future that big business has been looking for. The pace of global trade can only pick up speed, if the markets in individual countries can harmonize their supply chains and thus, small and medium-sized businesses can compete well with large corporations.
For small businesses emerging out of the smog of large cities that have incredible amounts of competition in every industry imaginable, the main task is to keep up with the most modern techniques in marketing, distribution, and development. The global climate for business is often shifting and fluctuating. Thus it’s crucial for CEOs and business leaders to understand the full impact of not growing fast enough or not having a stable base with which to rely on in hard times. Stakeholders across small businesses may be called in for their direct input if responsibilities are not met by the managers and leaders in the business they have invested in. Taking a small business globally is incredibly complex and needs a skilled hand to get all the dynamic processes right. Gaining a deep understanding of targeted markets and competing directly with the big boys at the top, is something that is a required appetite to successfully launch and drive growth in any small business. There are, however, certain key points that must be addressed while expansion is underway.
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Adding to your business
Adding new services and products to your repertoire as a business sounds relatively simple but gathering the logistical strength can be very challenging if you don’t have the foundations. For a start, you must research what services and products do your competitors provide that have a good profit margin? If you can emulate those but incorporate them into your own business, how many new employees would you need to hire? How much are you willing to pay them? Will you need to move into a larger office? If so, you will need to survey your local location for a prospect such as commercial real estate.
Before any moves can be made, your business should conduct broad and competent research in all possible areas where your business could improve. The best way to accomplish this is to assemble a marketing team, whose sole role is to enact an online advertisement campaign that will use analytics to find shoppers in the midst of exploring your field. Another team should also be gathered to do a physical ad campaign that means they will be talking to potential customers in the streets doing surveys. However, a board meeting should take place before this, and set out the clear objectives of each campaign. What is it you’re looking to achieve? How could you get the largest sample size to the survey? What kind of questions will you put to the people on the street? Ask your current customers what kind of new products they would like to see and how they would like to access them; including the potential price that they would feel comfortable with. Your market research must be pinpoint accurate and focus on the needs of the customers first and foremost. Before you worry about the manufacturing cost, mode of delivery and sales objectives, you must form an alliance with existing customers to make sure your reliable consumer base is happy with your expansionist moves.
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Developing a strategy
Each market has it’s own mood swings and narrative for each financial quarter, due to the economic, cultural, governmental and market driven shifts that occur. Conditions such as these should help your business to form a localized strategy and business plan which will drive success. However, your business must remain integrated into the overall corporate setting of your region and country, which means you must keep the finger on the pulse of trends.
- Define what your short term plan is, with regards to how much you’re willing to spend on questionnaires, online ad campaigns and what kind of benefits you imagine this would bring.
- For the long term, define your objectives, staircase your projected increases in sales, customer numbers, distribution costs and how large you think your business will become
- Develop your budget in accordance to how much revenue you bring in currently, and how much you think you will gain in the short term. This, of course, can be edited in the future should your goals be reached or you fall short of the set mark.
- How much expansion will you come into contact with such as the need to employ more staff, move into a large office area, do you need a building with larger storage capacity?
- How might your data storage need to be expanded, e.g. will you need more space on the cloud system you’re currently using? Or might you need more hardware to store your data on?
Set and commit to your schedule and dates, plan your projects with clear red lines and stick to the agreed time of progress being made.
Source – Recal Media
Form a spearhead team
Large multinationals that have been born out of the same position a small business holds have launched their business with the support and financial backing of executives of a larger company than them. Parent companies rapidly build a local team and scratch the surface on finding the mood of the populace much faster than a small team could ever hope to achieve. Using a proven senior interim executive position, a small business can hit the ground running and quickly gather enough information to validate your assumptions.
- Go to an industry expo to find a large investor who is willing to not only give you their financial backing but to also award you with their expertise and staff
- Bring in an experienced senior who has seen it all, and done it all in the industry, who can use their deep domain contacts to bring you closer to a picture that large successful businesses use to expand
- Form a stable infrastructure of people and finances. Consider outsourcing your systems to local service providers e.g. if you lack the personal to do surveys on the street, hire you local marketing company to do undertake this task for you.
- Begin recruiting experienced and respect advisors to the boardroom who can weigh in and help you with a tough decision.
- Any complaints you get along the way should be dealt with the utmost speed and efficiency. If you don’t douse the flames of bad press, you might fall back while trying to stride forward. Therefore you need to employ some a team with excellent communication skills like corporate pr from AMW Group.
Credit – edar
Acquire another business
This is by far the fastest route to explosive growth and expansion. Merging with another company can harmonize production, sales, and objectives. Acquiring another business will double the size of your business overnight and grow your profits and revenue exponentially. However, you must perform a scouring of the landscape with due diligence before you decide that this is the right option. When looking for the best potential partner, compare and contrast your strengths and weaknesses, and you will find, a company that can fill the gap when it comes to your inadequacies is the going to be very attractive and technically the best option. However, this is all well and good, but your company attitudes will also come into play as well, and forging a negotiation is going to let you know how well you can work together at a human level.
- Does the business you intend to merge into or buy, meet your company ethos and philosophy? Does it stack up to your expectations morally?
- Of the new staff that you’ve either hired with the merger or taken on board from another route, which staff has the credentials that are worthy of being utilized in a head office position? In other words, what new people, have the kind of leadership qualities that can drum up support and energy in the business, and should they be hired in such positions?
- Factor into your acquisition, the climate of the economy you’re in. Do market reports suggest that the economy is stable? Or perhaps is the global economy affecting the markets so much that the waves or changes are too thick and fast.
Image credit – Max Pixel
In order to enact calm and stable change, and transition from a small business to a medium-sized business that is on it’s way to becoming a large business, steady and calculated steps are taken. The financing and logistical planning will need to take into account the short-term effects of rapid expansion, so plan your money spending carefully and expand with calm trepidation. For the long term, your profit growth forecasts must be the clear defining objective, of which all else has to follow. Take calculated risks, but remember that Rome wasn’t built in a day. There are many different aspects to expanding a business, but the sequence of singular decisions all form to create a success or failure.