It can often be appealing for businesses to focus on generating short-term profit and driving sales at any cost. Sometimes it is essential to do so, but in many cases, this can take precedence over implementing and developing more sustainable medium or longer term initiatives to grow your business. Peter Ahye, CEO at leading business consultancy,ย Hexagon Consultants, shares insight into common pitfalls businesses make in the journey to growth, how these can be avoided and successfully navigated…
Journey to growth
At its core, business growth involves propelling a company beyond its initial or existing boundaries. Expansion and success is different for each business – varying from broadening its product offering to acquiring other businesses to reaching new markets. No matter the tactic, the goal remains the same – to increase profitability and ensure a viable sustainable future for the benefit of all stakeholders.
The excitement and opportunity of โgrowthโ is something which often clouds the value and importance of established, robust, and effective business processes, systems and having the right team. However, itโs not just about initial success, it’s about a business having the resilience and the ability to retain customer loyalty and drive continued demand to ensure a growth which is sustainable.
What are the most common pitfalls businesses make on their journey to growth?
There are a number of mistakes that businesses and business owners often make when it comes to navigating the journey and challenges of growth, the most common of which include;
Failure to nurture and assess skills and capabilities
A common theme and challenge for many businesses in the journey to growth is the failure to assess and identify the specific needs and capabilities that are required to support the business in its development. Businesses are advised to adopt a holistic approach, establishing key goals and objectives and diagnosing steps to achieve this.
From the start, businesses should be clear about exactly what it wants to do and secondly, understand what skills and capabilities are needed to achieve it. This extends beyond operational models and business systems and to the training and support offered to people.
The skills and capabilities of the team are the foundations for any business, providing a robust platform that will ultimately foster and support sustained success. As a business grows and develops, the capabilities and skills required will fluctuate and change – itโs vital that these are regularly reviewed to ensure that a business has the current skill set required to support both initial and sustained growth.
This doesnโt necessarily require new hires and more people, instead businesses should focus on identifying gaps to provide training and support for existing staff to grow and fulfil these roles. Only then should they bring in external unproven skills.
Poor planning & organisation are common pitfalls businesses make
Most commonly, Hexagon consults and advises businesses who have both short term goals and a long term vision, but lack a strategy and tangible solutions of how they will get from one stage to the next.
Processes, procedures and formal plans are often overlooked and overshadowed by the excitement of short term financial profit, new client wins and team growth. However, it is imperative that the structure to support this is already established and that it has been thoroughly embedded to underpin all business activity.
Effective processes and thorough planning are the key pillars to stabilise growth and provide a business with the structure to inform every stage and ensure the end goal is met. Without effective structure, planning and processes to hold up a business, growth and increased size or demand will not be supported and thus sustained.
Structure and processes are key for sustained business growth, however, In recent years the need for establishing a structure that also supports flexibility has become ever more important. With rapidly changing business landscapes and rising geo-political tensions, processes that support flexibility can also help businesses to flex and adapt to consumer demand and mitigate potential costly risks.
plans to grow, strong communication needs to be prioritised from the outset. This means establishing processes and strong lines of communication which will foster a culture of openness and transparency. Growth can be chaotic and unclear to many,ย particularly in a time where a lot of companies work in a remote or hybrid way, the value of strong and effective communication should not be overlooked.
Weak communication
If a business plans to grow, strong communication needs to be prioritised from the outset. This means establishing processes and strong lines of communication which will foster a culture of openness and transparency. Growth can be chaotic and unclear to many,ย particularly in a time where a lot of companies work in a remote or hybrid way, the value of strong and effective communication should not be overlooked.
When entering new markets or expanding product offering or team size, communication is pivotal for businesses to collaborate, align its efforts and work cohesively together to achieve goals. From the initial planning stages to final implementation of projects, clear and open conversations are paramount in order to mitigate risks and ensure that the overarching business objectives are met.
For more information on how to ensure sustained business growth, please visit www.hexconsultants.com.
Hexagon Consultants have also shared an article about business leaders needing performance coaches, such like top athletes do.
