By Tony Monisse
How fast do you grow in the current market? Drivers and enablers of growth.
In a recent client advisory board meeting we discussed the drivers and enablers of growth. It is important as a business grows that the drivers and enablers of growth are kept in reasonable balance.
If the drivers of growth far outweigh the enablers of growth then we have the potential to blow up the business causing the following:
- gross inefficiencies and affecting profit margins
- can stretch the business’ infrastructure sometimes past breaking point
- increase the complexity of your business and reduce communications
- result in wasteful processes
- cause stress and strain on your people leading to burnout
- dilution of culture as more people are taken on, making it difficult to develop management and reinforce your values
- can put extreme pressure on cashflow
In the current market, the CCI Business Confidence Survey recently identified that 31% of businesses are turning down offers of new work which would suggest that the drivers of growth far outweigh the enablers of growth. In the current market, what should be the strategies for your business setting up the year ahead?
What we discussed in our client meeting were two important questions:
1. How do we refine the drivers of growth?
- are we clear on the target customer and what work do we say no to?
- can we improve our sales process and how we better articulate our value proposition?
- in terms of product development are their opportunities to develop the existing offer to increase value to the customer and improve on pricing to the customer?
2. How do we strengthen the enablers of growth?
- in terms of operations, are there opportunities to simplify the processes and remove waste?
- can we invest and better take advantage of technology to be more efficient and reduce reliance on labor costs?
- from a HR perspective, are we clear on our “Employee Value Proposition” so can better attract, develop and retain staff?
- do we have the right people in the right seats doing the right things and can we better scale our business by re-organising who does what work?
- what is our marketing plan and channels to market to attract the right staff?
- how can we better manage cashflow including working capital (trade debtors, inventory and trade creditors) to finance growth?
We are confident with our clients that if they focus on answering these questions above, they will successfully navigate this time and grow their business whilst keeping the drivers and enablers of growth in balance.
If you would like to discuss the above and how it may apply to your business, please do not hesitate to contact our office at admin@brentnallswa.com.au or call us on (08) 6212 7200.
