It's easy to declare you want growth.
It's easy to believe you are ready.
It's easy to just give it a go.
It's not so easy to achieve. Growth is different from regular operations; you have different targets, different priorities, different reporting. Continued high growth is only possible if you maintain efficiency as you grow, otherwise the cost base simply mushrooms underneath you.
Here are some stages of growth maturity with examples for you.
1. Do you have any crises? E.g. cash, people, litigation, work, whatever. Get out of the mess first!
2. Do you have any compliance issues? E.g. overdue reporting, inadequate record-keeping, lack of controls (including GDPR of course!). If so, are they prioritised and do you have a plan to address them?
3. How well is "business as usual" working? E.g. not so good: every day is about problem solving; or there are pockets of excellence/pockets of not so good. Better: processes have reached maturity level 2 or more (is the finance & admin end of month is completed within 10 days?); staff turnover is under control, morale is good.
4. Can you do project work on time? Actually there are plenty of people that don't even define their projects. They start because someone thought of it, not because its a good thing to do as guided by strategy and authorised by the business case. When you can run multiple projects on time, go to step 5.
5. Is your growth infrastructure in place? Can everyone describe where you are going and in a similar manner? Do you have the meeting structure to manage both operations and growth? Do you have effective resource management in place? And many more.
If steps 1 to 5 are in place, you should be delivering against strategy. If this is the case, is your strategy achieving your shareholders' (not necessarily the manager's) wishes? Do you have a plan for organic growth, mergers and acquisitions, spin-offs, etc. that leads to the sale (or succession) of all or parts of the group?
If steps 1-5 are not in place, 40 years of large company and SME high growth experience advises that you put them in place.
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