Sustainable growth is something that every business is striving for, but creating a business growth strategy to achieve this is no mean feat. Grow too quickly and a business can quickly lose it’s focus, agility and alignment. Alternatively, if your business doesn’t grow fast enough it may fall behind the competition.
So, when it comes to business growth it’s important to have a strategic plan, but what should that strategy look like? Here we talk through the steps you need to include in a successful business growth plan.
1. Where do you want to focus your organisational growth?
Many businesses fail because they spread themselves too thinly and try to do too much at once. Therefore, you’ll need to choose where to spend most of your effort and resources.
Rather than saying we want to grow as a business, what is it that you specifically want to grow? This could be a product range, a team, or grow into a new geographic area. Your business growth strategy could include several areas for focus, but you should consider the resources you have available – you don’t want burnout to become a factor.
2. Competitor research – Get to know the marketplace and industry
Take the time to research the business sector you want to grow into – this allows you to understand the level of opportunity and whether the growth is actually feasible. There is no point in focusing on something if the opportunity simply isn’t there.
Your research can also give you a great insight into the resources you’ll need to achieve the growth you want. When creating your strategic plan, it’s essential you consider and set realistic timelines and budgets to allow your teams to meet your organisation’s growth expectations.
3. Set business goals – hello OKRs
Now you understand where you want to grow and the size of the opportunity, it’s time to think about how much you want to grow. This is where OKRs can really help supercharge your business growth. The OKR method helps you set organisational objectives and outline key results. This can really help you to define what success would look like. You can encourage your teams to stretch for the stars, and encourage innovation to help you reach your growth aspirations.
4. What does your journey look like? Create a strategic plan that reflects your growth goals
This is where your teams can really shine – by encouraging innovation and cross functional working you are ensuring the best people for each project are helping to drive the business forward towards its growth aspirations. Create strategic plans, assign tasks and check-in regularly. By checking-in regularly you can solve any issues that may inhibit business growth if not tackled.
5. What tools and equipment do you need to reach your growth goals?
You know which areas of the business you want to focus on and grow, you have goals in place, but what do you need to reach those objectives? Many businesses fail to implement the right tools and don’t get the results they need. That’s why it’s vitally important to ensure you have the resources in place to achieve your growth goals.
Think about budgeting, whether your team has the capacity, can any tools & software support your growth and any other additional services such as consultants.
This is where the right OKR software and coaches can make a real difference. By creating a dedicated OKR team and implementing goal tracking software, you’ll have greater visibility on your growth progress. This can be shared company-wide so that everyone stays on track towards your organisational goals.
6. Go for it – execute your strategic plan
Now’s the time, you’re ready, go and reach for your growth goals. You’ve got a well thought out plan, set your OKRs and thought about the resources you need to achieve your objectives. You’re in a perfect position to succeed.
7. Test, learn and adapt – take the learnings from your projects and implement them moving forward
At There Be Giants, we live by the test, learn and adapt method. As you work through your business growth plan make sure you check in with your teams regularly. Are there better ways of doing things? Is there a new idea that hasn’t been tried yet? Test your ideas, learn from the test and then adapt and include the best bits in your projects moving forward.
If you’re ready to implement OKRs to help you achieve your growth goals, we can help! Find out how we can help you on your growth journey – book a call with one of our giants.
