Business Consultancy

Business development strategies

All businesses need to find ways to grow. Fast-changing markets mean you can never rely upon a loyal customer base and you should never ignore opportunities to extend market share or develop new lines. You need to plan growth carefully if it is to succeed. It can be risky, but the right strategy can deliver stability, security and long-term profits. Once you've assessed the current strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to your business and how well it's equipped to handle them, you can move on to the next stage - building a strategy for growth. Before you pursue any growth strategies, it's essential to make sure that your business is running efficiently. While you may be spending more time and resource on developing the business, you need to be sure that the core of the business is still performing well. Your existing customers need to be serviced in the same way as before - if not better - to avoid you losing ground to your competition and to keep your cashflow healthy. Timing is critical to the success of any growth strategy. Answers to the following key questions will help you judge if the time is right:

  • Could your business cope with expansion, or is it working at full capacity?
  • Do you have the resources and systems in place to carry on your existing business while targeting expansion elsewhere?
  • If new initiatives are likely to disrupt existing performance, how will you ensure your customers don't lose out? You may have to consider including additional staffing, refining production processes and equipment or outsourcing administrative tasks in order to give you the flexibility to pursue a growth strategy.

Every business should be looking for growth. Even if you're happy with your current performance, it's important to keep looking for ways to develop. If you don't, you risk allowing your competitors the room to grow and take market share from you that could seriously weaken your position.


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