Growing your business
The time has come for a further push to grow your business. The question is how do you best do that? There are many options but let’s look at two possible general solutions.
Firstly, you could grow it from within by reaching out to new customers, developing new products and enhancing production to allow you to meet increased demand. As ever when exploring new territory, there are associated risks and the alternative of acquiring an established business or combining with a competitor could be the answer.
At Jacobs Allen we are more than just Chartered Accountants and Tax Advisors, we also offer business advice whether you are just starting out or already running a successful business and are considering the next step.
When taking that next step, we understand that it may not be as simple as one option or the other and we are there to help you assess the best route for your business.
Let’s look at growing your company – you will need time and capital no matter how you intend to do this.
If you plan to launch new product ranges, you will need to invest in market research and product development to ensure you make the right choices.
Alternatively, expanding your customer base by looking at widening the geographical area you cover or developing a targeted marketing campaign to attract more customers in your area could help boost profits, but you will need to assess the cost and cash flow implications carefully.
Another option is improving efficiency to ensure your business is working as hard as possible for you, making your systems smarter so that your people are used to the best of their ability and routine tasks can be done more quickly.
Investing in these growth projects needs to be focussed to ensure it doesn’t detract from your primary goals and sufficient resource is directed at any retraining required to actually improve productivity, and therefore profit.
The question is could acquiring another business be a simpler, less risky strategy?
There’s always a risk with any business decision and it is key to reducing those risks on any proposed acquisition for good due diligence and research into an established business or competitor that perhaps already offers the goods or services you had planned to create, or one that has customers in the area you were looking to expand into.
The existing business owners may have already done some of the hard work ensuring the demand is there, trialling options and fine tuning the end product or service. But you have to ensure that time is given to integrating their people and the way they do business into your own systems, or modifying those systems to include benefits that you see in how that business operates. You will pay a premium for this, and there is a long term commitment that you may not have considered.
Identifying the key people and the strategy is vital to ensure that their initial success continues or to ensure that any weaknesses you identify can be overcome to give you an added value to the acquisition, both delivering a profitable outcome.
Whatever combination of options could be the best way forward for you and your business, at Jacobs Allen we can help you work out the best solution for your business and ensure you have the financial knowledge to make whichever option you choose work for you.
Contact us today for more detailed advice.
