5 Things to Consider When Scaling a Business

Expanding your startup or small business doesn’t happen overnight. Every company starts out as an idea that grows through thoughtful planning and dedication. Scaling your business requires the right people, experience and financing. Find out how you can scale your business without too many growing pains.

A lot of factors must align for your business to reach its full potential. Many of today’s top businesses found success through trial and error. Luckily, you can learn from their experiences. Here’s what needs to take place to help scale your business:

1. Grow the operational capacity of the company.
2. Adapt a process to continuously handle more work without added strain or interruptions.
   
3. Maintain a positive return on investment as your business expands.
   
4. Hire and retain new employees.
5. Continuously train and promote internal staff.
   
6. Power operations and expand your business network. 
   
7. Meet expectations and maintain customer satisfaction.

Growing a company is contingent on your ability to maintain quality and meet higher demands. For example, if your sales increase rapidly, can you still deliver a product that meets your customer’s expectations?

Scalability refers to whether your business has the capacity to reach its growth potential. It means having a strategic plan that allows for expansion without added strain. Scaling your business for growth requires a lot of thorough planning, financing, technology and experience.

While many startups feel the pressure to grow quickly, scaling your business takes time. The more customers and employees you have, the more resources you need to meet the demand. Here’s how you can begin to scale your small business:

Take inventory of where your business is today and what areas you’ll need to adjust to grow. Consider the following:

• Create a detailed sales forecast with a list of your business goals, including new customers and predicted revenue.
  
• Break down your predicted growth per month.
  
• Create a similar expense forecast to include the technology, staff and systems you’ll need to support your sales forecast.
  

Think of everything you might need. The more specific you can be, the better you can prepare to scale your business.

Scaling a business requires incremental funds. Based on your growth plan, consider the OpEx (operational expense) you'll need to maintain regular business functions, such as administrative fees, subscription-based services and rent, as well as CapEx (capital expense) expenditures, like purchasing IT equipment.

Your employees are the backbone of your business, and as you scale, you’ll need more support. Determine where you’ll need assistance, like hiring additional staff for customer service or more managers to oversee productivity. Consider creating new positions necessary for growth, such as a marketing or public relations team.

Retaining top talent is also essential to your company’s success. People are more likely to stay committed and evolve with your business if you invest in them. Create a work culture where employees thrive, and your company will grow.

While attracting new customers is important to any business, retaining your current customers is even more so. Before you can grow, make sure you’re delivering quality interactions, products and services to satisfy your customers. Then create a plan for delivering the same standard your current customers have come to expect.

Investing in technology helps streamline processes and save money on labor. The products you choose to scale your business should:

• Minimize manual work by automating your workflow at a lower cost.
  
• Integrate your systems to bridge gaps and simplify communications between teams.
  
• Increase productivity and save time and money with cost-effective equipment, like servers, computers and printers.

Scaling your business means thinking ahead and planning for any potential roadblocks, like security breaches..
Safeguard your business to help protect your data and applications from malicious hackers or unpredicted events, such as natural disasters. Cloud-based solutions help connect employees across various locations and offer business continuity to keep operations running. Cloud solutions to consider are:

• Desktop as a Service (DaaS): This solution allows your employees to securely access important applications and data from almost anywhere. Create and manage your plan as you scale your business to meet your employee’s needs and workload. Pairing this service with SD-WAN improves the performance, connectivity and reliability of applications.
  
• Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): Moving your IT infrastructure to the cloud reduces risk of data loss, lowers capital investment and simplifies compliance. IaaS offers a reliable disaster recovery plan, allowing your business to keep producing and growing, even during emergency events.
  
• Security as a Service (SECaaS): Cyber-attacks, such as ransomware, may irreparably damage your company. SECaaS works with leading security companies to address your unique business vulnerabilities and solve the top business security challenges, like data breaches, compliance requirements, asset tracking, employee privacy and cyber-attacks.
  
• Microsoft 365: With co-management, migration and user enablement services, transitioning to Microsoft 365 makes it easier than ever to scale alongside your business.
• Identity as a Service (IDaaS): As you scale your business, new employees will be added while others may choose to transition out. IDaaS maintains user identity authentication for secure access to data and applications across complex environments (both on-site and in the cloud).