All owners need to have the desire for their business to grow, however, many early-stage startups lack the ambition to scale. Even well-established businesses need to have more motivation to create realistic targets, develop plans, and concrete actions of how growth can be achieved.

It takes more than a founder to build a successful business. Although founders have a level of expertise, growth requires expanding the skillset. We advise business leaders to build a team with a wide scope and supportive skills. Hiring people with MBA degrees brings general management skills, while accountants, bankers or experienced executives could prove useful for mentorship during scale ups.

Building a network of organizations and people outside the business is essential for growth. We suggest a network of partners, such as service providers, sales channel partners, suppliers and customers. We see the most growth in Strategic Business Partners that form a formal alliance between the fledgling firm and established companies.

Managing operations by hands-on founders will eventually limit growth. Flexibility can be the enemy while trying to expand the growth of your business. The best way for a business to scale is for managers to implement standardized and repeatable processes, with proper delegation. In most businesses this may require an investment in purchasing support systems including IT, training personnel, and delegation from the founder and senior management.

In order to invest and focus growth a company needs to identify and emphasize the company’s core competencies, it’s unique knowledge that underlies its capability to compete. Owners often fail to see their business through the eyes of their customers allowing only the distorted self-perception based on a founder’s initial vision. We advise companies to develop a clear articulation of their company’s competitive strength in the eyes of the customers, and how this is related to internal processes and knowledge. The competencies and competitive strength articulated will be the driving force for a relevant growth path in a way that allows scaling to be successful.