Looking to take your business to the next step? There are so many different ways that you can promote growth and scale up your company. 60% of business owners believe their revenue will continue to grow if they adopt scaling techniques. This blog sets out clear points with visuals for how you can ensure you scale up as efficiently as possible!

There are 4 key growth strategies that you can utilise for your companies potential. All business’ should at least consider implementing some of these growth strategies into their plans to help them scale up. They are all essential parts of increasing revenue and expanding the company to guarantee success. The Key strategies are: Market Penetration, Market Development, Product Development and Diversification.

Scale up using Market Penetration

This strategy is best for business growth when your aim is to generate more sales of a pre-existing product or service and increase your presence in that market. This is done successfully by converting customers from competing companies who are supporting your business instead. Another way is to target your loyal customers and try to increase their use and dependence on your company. 

Market Development

This business growth strategy is perfect when you’re looking to explore a new market that you haven’t previously tackled. You can do this on a geographical basis. This is when you expand your team out to new offices across the country or even internationally. By doing so you will increase your brand’s exposure and ultimately grow your reach out to new markets.

Product Development

Product development is another type of business growth and involves launching new things from your company. This may be goods or services that you have decided to expand your company with. For example you may decide to hire contractors to provide temporary expertise knowledge

Scale up using Diversification

As the name implies, this growth strategy involves expanding your business by exploring completely new marketing while launching new services or products. This has the largest risk factor as it requires your company tackling completely new areas of business. The marketing strategy and advertisement campaigns will need to be looked at as they’ll need to target a different audience so it may involve elements of trial and error to begin with. The most logical way to do this is by targeting these new products or services at your current loyal customers. By doing this you have a ‘safety net’ of people who you know are guaranteed to be interested and who already trust the company.

Horizontal Diversification:

Horizontal diversification is a growth strategy that involves a company buying new things such as investing in more advanced products or services to then sell to pre existing customers. Developing new products is usually very different to the existing ones however they will still be aiming at the same consumers.

Vertical Diversification:

This involves diversifying in a strategic way to help the process for your consumers. It’s a growth strategy that involves the journey of the consumer by releasing good or services for sale that’re directly related to what you previously offered to customers. An example would be a company who sells furniture may start to offer paints or different add-ons related to furniture. As this would be developing their products and services in a way that’s relevant to their pre-existing goods and services.

Concentric Diversification:

This form of growth strategy is similar to vertical diversification. This strategy will mean that you’re entering the same industry as any suppliers that you may use. This will then cut out the ‘middle man’ and will save you having to rely on external third parties.

Conglomerate Diversification:

This is the opposite to the growth strategies discussed above. Conglomerate diversification is the process in which your company expands to a completely unrelated industry to the one you entered previously. This way you will be attracting a whole brand new pool of consumers. As it is a vast investment large companies are more likely to use it. This is because it’s something completely unrelated to what you’ve previously focused on as a company so there is an element of risk.

What Growth strategy should I use for my business to scale up?

So you understand all the main growth strategies but you’re still unsure which to apply to your business? Your ambitions and end goal are both factors that will help in deciding what strategy is best suited to you. Each come with different severity of risk – but sometimes the greater the risk the greater the reward!  

Hopefully now you’re clear on all the different strategies mentioned above! If you’re still looking for assistance on scaling up your company our team here at Scalability are all happy to help! No matter what your scale-up ambitions are, our team of experts will immerse themselves into your brand,  uncover your key talent insights and activate a series of campaigns to ensure you attract the best technical hires.

For more advice on how to scale up your company, get in touch with a member of the Searchability team! Call us on 0208 157 1710 or email us on [email protected]

Whether you’re an employer or an employee there are so many ways your career and your company can benefit from attending Industry events so why not give them a try? From networking events to tech conferences and skills festivals, there’s definitely plenty to be learnt from attending events.

Some people find networking overwhelming or may even feel slightly intimidated by it. If you’re wondering if industry events are worth attending in 2023, here’s some top tech events this year and reasons why you and your business would benefit attending!

Meet other people who share your passion and career:

Attending different tech events not only will you meet a plethora of different people who all share similar passions, goals and ambitions career wise, but you'll also be in the presence of a lot of your competitors when you're there! This is a great way to expand your network by talking to different people throughout the day. Remember to connect with them on LinkedIn to continue the relationships between people in the tech world. By doing this you’ll be able to grow stronger relationships and expand your professional networks. This could help your company scale up as speaking to people in the same industry and asking if they’re open to looking for different roles and potentially joining your company is a great way to expand your team and open up opportunities for the business to scale up.

Expand your Network

Meeting new people and connecting with them on LinkedIn is a great way to expand your professional network. Another great way of doing this is by joining different social media groups. Subsequently, it will increase your social media presence before and after the event. Making sure you stay active and known in the industry, will lead to more brand exposure for your company. People will be likely to engage in business with you, after they've seen how active you are on social media. Building a portfolio of your work so they can see that you'd be a trusted and successful business part.

Positive Brand Exposure:

By expanding your professional network, you’ll also be promoting your company’s brand and culture. This will allow you to work towards scaling up as it’ll allow you to promote your business and attract more people to apply for roles at the company. This is a great way to kickstart growth and build your team. By highlighting your company's culture it'll attract the best candidates for your business. People at these events will often have a genuine interest in the industry too. This means it’s a great place to meet people who are genuinely passionate about tech which is exactly want you want from candidates.

Make a Lasting Impression:

As a result of lockdown in 2020, there has been a huge rise in remote working and meetings through virtually rather than in person. Even though that’s become the new norm it’s still so important to meet people in the industry face to face to make a more authentic and lasting impression. It’s a lot more memorable seeing someone and engaging in convocation face to face as oppose to just on a screen via teams.

Different Tech events in 2023 to Consider attending:

Digital Skills Festival on the 6^th Feb :

  This is taking place in Manchester and is for any industry or educational professionals to talk about different issues within the tech sector and try to find solutions for those issues.

All About the Technology Industry on the 21^st Feb :

The all about technology industry event is taking place in central Oxfordshire. It’s aim is to allow people to obtain new skills enabling them to pursue a career in the tech industry if they want to. It’s a short course and all services are completely free of charge!

Reframe Women in Tech on the 30^th and 31^st March:

The Reframe women in tech event will be taking place at Emirates Old Trafford. It’s the 3^rd year this event has taken place, you can purchase either a 1 day or 2 day ticket. The aim of the event is to provide different speeches and workshops to help empower and motivate.

Green Tech Conference on the 16^th March:

This event is taking place on Oxford road in Manchester. It is set to discuss upskilling and innovating growth in the tech sector to be more eco friendly and economic. It’s welcoming a variety of companies and individuals who’re all aiming to or are already in the process of developing innovative new technology. This technology reduces the emissions and carbon footprint resulting in a greener future. Guest speakers include:

• The ethical sustainability expert Steve Connor
• Chris Mason a Chartered UK attorney who handles cases each day regarding innovative tech.
• David Walsh who’s a UK and EU patent attorney specialising in different types of biotech.

London Tech Week:

London Tech Week is taking place from the 12^th of June till the 16^th of June. It’s being held in Westminster London and is featuring live speeches. This with provide you with advice and information about the tech ecosystem from innovative founders. This year is London Tech week’s 10^th anniversary! It’s offering networking hubs, live streamed content and many different zones to find out all things tech!

Hopefully now you feel confident as to why it's important to attend industry events and can find some in 2023 that will benefit you and your business!

For more advice on how to scale up your company, get in touch with a member of the Searchability team! Call us on 0208 157 1710 or email us on [email protected]. Or take a look at our website for more info scalability.agency

Scaling and growth are often incorrectly used interchangeably, as they’re seen as being very similar processes it can be hard to separate the two and distinguish between them both. This article will develop your understanding of the two and enable you to differentiate between the two to help set yourself direct goals.

It’s important to know which to focus on between growing and scaling as a company, Harvard business school research results show that half of all start-ups will fail after the first 5 years of being formed. These figures rise to 70% following the 10 year mark which highlights just how important it is to really understand how growth and scaling are separate processes and which to set your attention to for maximum success.

To put it simply, Scaling refers to an increase in income at a more rapid rate than costs rising whereas growth usually involves the increase in resources at the same rate as revenue. Failing to grow as a company can be catastrophic however it can be equally as damaging if there isn’t a focus on scaling up. Companies must be strategic with when to focus on scaling and when the focus should shift to scaling as 2/3 of the fastest growing companies result in failure. It also must be notes that Growth must occur before a business is able to scale up. This is because once a business has managed to grow substantially, it should then be able to be able to manage profits and other factors more efficiently – enabling them to scale.

How to tell the two apart:

Both growth and scaling up are vital processes in the success of a company, deciding which to focus on is pivotal for your company. The goal of growth compared to the goals of scaling are both slightly different so here’s a few ways you can tell the two apart:

The Company's Priority:

With growth, the company’s priority will be to attract customers or business in traditional ways such as introducing offers and different promotions in order to meet demands. Whereas if a company is scaling up then they will usually turn to more modern platforms such as social media or mass emails taking a more holistic approach.

Overall Gross Profit:

The gross profit when a company is focusing on growth is usually fairly low as they’re spending vast amounts on resources like new employees to help meet the demands of the growth. In contrast when scaling up the company will focus on consistency and as they focus on their existing employees capability and utilise their skills rather than hiring masses of new people, they therefore have minimal spending's so their gross profit is extremely high.

Growing a business

Business growth involves a business generating an increased amount of revenue and resources such as employees, offices, technology etc. In order for a company to be able to grow these increased resources must be managed in an effective way, an example of this would be hiring more people if your current employees are being overworked or bringing in contractors to specialise on a particular upcoming project you have in mind for the company that would be too difficult for your current employees to complete. This therefore would increase the amount of money spent on.

Why not try one of these 5 ways to help accelerate the growth of your business:

• Research the market you’re targeting.
• Increase levels of customer retention with a CRM system ( Customer relations management system).
• Form strategic partnerships with people experienced in a similar field.
• Ensure you hire the correct people for the business.
• Focus on social media to grow your presence and interact with more potential future clients / partners.

Scaling a business

Scaling a business involves the increase of revenue while resources such as time and money remain at a minimum level. Here at scalability we have comprised a 7 step plan of how to scale up your business with ease as shown below. This involves identifying your growth objectives to set yourself a timeline of how long you want to focus on scaling up for and which skillsets you want to utilise.

Next key feedback is given by the team at Scalability including interview availability and giving feedback on CVs. After this dedicated recruitment and employer brand professionals from Searchability will immerse themselves into your scale up journey and help you reach your targets. After this our Accelerator fund will be discussed which is unique as it allows you to adapt your payments based on how much you’d like to spend and when you’d like to pay it, it’s flexible to make scaling up even more accessible to almost any business.

Following these steps the hunt for the top talent for your company will begin with our specialist recruiters finding the best candidates to help reach your scaling goals. To help set your company up for long term success we also provide recruitment marketing and employer branding to attract the right candidates and future business partners.

Hopefully now you know the difference between scaling and growing your business. If you’re looking to scale up then why not get in touch with a member of our specialist team who can help you grow your tech team at an accelerated pace.

No matter what your scale-up ambitions are, our team of experts will immerse themselves into your brand,  uncover your key talent insights and activate a series of campaigns to ensure you attract the best technical hires.

Ready to Scale? Get in touch