How to Scale a Service Business Sustainably: The Essential Guide

So in short, a bad process will only be amplified once you begin trying to scale. But truth be told, scaling a business requires a whole new level of skills and systems that many entrepreneurs can’t fully anticipate. For this reason, some business advisors caution against scaling too quickly. According to Startup Genome, over 90 percent of startups fail due to self-destruction, not competition. Just as scaling looks different depending on what stage you’re in, the specific steps you take will depend on your industry, your market, and your goals. But there are four general scaling principles that apply to just about any business looking to grow strategically. When scaling a small business, getting caught up in everything you need to do is easy.

Piruze Subunchu, a McKinsey alumni and Stripe’s Head of Southeast Asia and Hong Kong, says growth occurs when you adopt a user-first mindset. Timo also emphasizes that you should never underestimate the importance of keeping people in the loop with communications. If you have a number of remote teams or multiple offices in different regions, you must make sure they all know they’re part of one passionate global how to scale a business team with a clear and unified mission. As the number of markets and economies Pipedrive targeted grew bigger, so did the risk of positioning their product incorrectly. Timo and his team were able to tap into deeper pockets and they also plunged into the wealth of knowledge of this experienced, global-minded community. There are more companies and the concentration of them makes it a better learning base.

Get Your Strategy Right

It happens when your employees can no longer handle the workload. As a result, getting new customers would decrease your service quality.

• Scaling Up has been an indispensable help for us, thanks a lot for that.
• Include a spreadsheet that breaks the numbers down by month.
• Knowing how to calculate hours worked helps track productivity, ensures you receive the correct amount of wage, and leads to positive working…
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• Many build our executive learning through workshops, online learning, events, and CEO Bootcamps into their annual plans.

No, all of our programs are 100 percent online, and available to participants regardless of their location. We offer self-paced programs on the HBS Online course platform. Lauren Landry is the director of marketing and communications for Harvard Business School Online.

Scaling through product development can be achieved through these steps:

When the time comes to scale, many companies realize internal factors are slowing their scaling process. Delve into scaling internally by focusing on your organization’s culture and people. As a cloud-based platform, it can be accessible from anywhere with internet, giving enterprises better flexibility and scalability.

Determine your company’s strategy and be intentional in your design activities choices and recommendations. Complete the Pragmatic Data Maturity Assessment to see if you’re making the most of your company’s data. Business scalability is about planning, perspective, and balance. Study what your competitors are doing, for better or worse. Take a problem to a colleague and see if he or she has a solution you hadn’t thought of.

Six common mistakes to avoid when scaling a small business

Product management oversees a product’s development and life cycle. The ultimate goal is to create and deliver a product that meets customers’ needs and generates revenue for the company. The product concept was quickly proven in the market, and we saw real traction. This meant formalized pricing, defined product bundles, standardized workflows and larger, specialized teams and managers. Some team members were actually relieved to add structure, but many chafed at the lack of creativity and segmentation of their job responsibilities. Startups bring together a highly-aligned group of people, often friends or relatives.

Does your team always end up working overtime to get their project work finished? As you expand your business and take operations to the next level, make a conscious decision whether you are aiming for growth or scaling. Growth may appear to produce results first, but you need scaling to sustain those results in the long run. One of the first places to check for your company’s efficiency is in the revenue systems. Revenue leakage refers to revenue that doesn’t make it into your business, either because of incomplete billing, incorrectly-applied discounts, scope creep, or unpaid invoices. These leaks can wear down your profits and slow your progress, so identify and plug any revenue leaks as you set your systems up for sustainable scaling.

The Scaling Up Performance Platform

Do not startup from afar, make a global presence part of the very first phase of your plan. As for leadership, well, their office can only be described as the place where they are needed the most. You will need to hopscotch around timezones if you plan to scale your business across borders. We want to share the lessons learned by Pipedrive’s founders so you can avoid our mistakes and capitalize on our successes in your quest for fast global growth. She loves to share her knowledge with others so that they can be successful in their online endeavors.

• But it may also be essential if you are going to make the most of your opportunities.
• Hiring additional employees and building out the right infrastructure and business processes typically require capital.
• But entrepreneurs who grow into leaders almost always scale because they are open to learning.
• This storage is often necessary for the basic functionality of the website.