Scaling Your Organisation – The Logistics Of Growing Your Business

Remember when you first got married and it was just the two of you? You were young, full of energy, very much in love, and more than likely pretty strapped for cash. But you didn’t care because you had passion and spirit and were totally bulletproof. Then came children and a mortgage, and although you had more money, you seemed to have less time. You got used to leaving messages on the fridge for each other, and conversations were no longer about dreams and plans, but about the kids’ schedules and whose turn it was to take out the rubbish. Scaling your business looks a lot like this.

In the early days of your start-up’s life, money was few but ideas were many. You were full of excitement and the vibe at the “office” – actually your bedroom or garage – was vibrant and dynamic. A spirit of adventure was in the air and the potential was palpable. But then your business started to take off. Numbers grew – both in term of money in the bank and employees in the office. Heck, you even had a real office! What you didn’t have any more though was that slightly breathless entrepreneurial essence that bonded your company’s pioneering employees together.

Scaling your organisation requires a certain degree of process, structure and control if you want things to move in the right direction. But it’s still important to keep that start-up spirit alive as your company doubles, or even triples in size. Transparency and innovation are key to keeping things exciting.

The Logistics Of Scaling Your Organisation

It’s important to remember, however, that growing your business is not just about selling more products or services. Of course, that is at the centre of scaling, but selling more stuff has a ripple effect on the rest of your company as well. Hand in hand with increased sales comes an increase in all the activities that support those sales. Technology, logistics, accounting and purchasing are just some of the areas that have to grow in order to maintain and support your company’s growth.

Prepare Your Processes

It’s absolutely vital to ensure that your telecommunications and IT systems are able to cope with the rapid change that comes with constant growth. This is why so many start-ups and small businesses choose a cloud-based platform. As new product lines or services are added, and new markets explored, it can easily be built up and configured. Outsourcing, or opting for managed services, makes this part of the process even easier.

Find Your Funding

When scaling your organisation, you will no doubt need to look at finding the funds to finance that growth. The first option many businesses consider is a bank loan. This is an attractive option for small business owners as, unlike most other forms of funding, you won’t have to hand over equity in your company in return for the loan. However, banks don’t always jump at the chance to offer finance to scaling business as there is often a considerable degree of risk involved. In addition, start-ups have few tangible assets and their short-term cash flow projections are usually negative.

Crowdfunding, angel investors and venture capitalists are usually far more open to financing start-ups, making them a popular choice for high-growth companies. However, if you do decide to go this route, remember these wise words of wisdom: Great ideas and enthusiasm will only get you so far. When it comes to attracting investment, you do need ducks and they do have to be in a row. Investors want to assess your business model, and understand why your product or service is so special. Most importantly, they want to know what it’s it for them. Just as there’s no such thing as a free lunch, there’s also no such thing as free funding. Do your homework and make sure your numbers add up.

Manage Your Time

Time management can be challenging for small business owners at the best of times, but when you’re scaling your organisation, it can feel completely overwhelming. This is when forward planning really comes into its own. It’s simply not sustainable to do everything yourself, so delegation and outsourcing of functions are essential to ensuring the smooth and effective scale-up of your business.

At Huge Connect, we’ve been offering managed telecommunications services to SMEs and Enterprise since 2005. From email and Internet services to telephony, Cloud services, WiFi and firewalls, you get a single telecommunications service provider taking care of everything for you. One point of reference, one bill, and one call to make in case anything goes wrong.

So let us manage your telecommunications so you can focus on scaling your organisation and taking over the world! Or, at least, your corner of it. Chat to us today and let’s work on a solution best suited to you.