Growing your business is one thing, but maintaining that growth overtime is another matter. Identifying what led to your success in thefirst place and building on that, without running into cash-flowproblems is a real challenge.
In economic terms, a sustainable growth rate (SGR) is is the maximumgrowth rate in sales a business can fulfill using only their internalfinancial resources; ie without loans or further outside investment. Growing too quickly sounds like a nice problem to have, but without thecash at hand to cover new premises, staff and other infrastructure, thatprogress can come to a crashing halt.
How do businesses reach that sweet spot where they are achieving theright amount of growth without entirely depleting funds? This questionis made all the more difficult due to trends outside of anybody’s directcontrol. Considerations such as the wider economy, consumer tastes andexpectations, emerging technology and political events all contribute touncertainty at the best of times. But there are steps you can take tokeep you on the right course.
Inefficiency
Identifying and eliminating anything that might be stopping your companyfrom reaching its full potential is essential before you can estimate arealistic sustainable growth rate. Breaking down your business processesinto clearly identified stages that can be analysed and optimised is themost effective way of achieving this. Having an accurate andcomprehensive overview of how every aspect of your organisation operateswill bring any weak spots to light.
Running a more efficient operation allows you to expand and fulfillorders at lower overheads, reducing the requirement to seek furtheroutside investment or borrowing.
The right clients
It can be tempting for a growing business to take on as much new work aspossible, but this decision isn’t as clear cut as it seems. Not allclients are equal, as some may require more attention and effort forlower returns. Some customers may even cost you money in the long run. Having the tools at hand to properly itemise and evaluate every job athand is invaluable when deciding which orders or contracts to fulfil.
Once you’ve gained clients that provide a steady-flow of worthwhilework, you’ll need to ensure they stay on board. Consistent, high-qualitycustomer service is an essential part of this effort, especially in amarket where customers can compare and switch to another service inminutes.
A clear path forward
Knowing what’s working or not in your business is essential to formingany kind of plan for sustainable growth, and accurate, up-to-dateinformation is vital to making these decisions. Collecting data in realtime provides a far greater degree of accuracy, compared to surveys andestimates which may not correspond with the reality on the ground.
Being able to visualise the relevant business data in the form of chartsand graphs gives you an immediate sense of what needs to be implementedto sustain growth.
How SwiftCase helps
SwiftCase is a powerful business process management platform, with arange of features that facilitate sustainable growth:
- Break your business processes down into clearly designated stages,optimise your workflow
- Calculate profit margins, pick clients and projects based on commercialviability
- Collect business data in real time, cut out the guesswork
- Generate business charts and graphs based on a wide range of businesscriteria
Get in touch today, for a free, no-obligation demonstration.
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