Business Activity || Strategies for Business Growth by @weasell

One very important factor in business in that it need to keep growing in order to remain competitive and relevant. A business firm is expected to constantly searching and making use of the knowledge of its changing market to be able to identify and exploit growth opportunity.

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The concept of a business growth is simply trying to deliver your product or services better than the competitors. The capacity of a business firm to deliver resides on some factors such as the range of quality products or services they provide to their customers, the skills and service offered by the staff, supplier relationships/technology and customer/technical knowledge.

Thus, entrepreneurs are expected to provide an environment fit for growing the firm. This entails regular review or assessment of the structure, products, policies, system activities, co-ordination, decisions making and communication networks. These factors are vital in order to achieve optimum growth.

There are numbers of alternative path to business growth for a better organized firm and there are:

• Expending Product Line and Services Offerings:

This is a curial aspect when considering how to stay ahead of the competition. A firm may increase its range of products and services offerings by serving the existing market or in some cases discovering an entirely new market. To be able to achieve this, a lot of market research and intelligence has to be done to know how customer will react to the new product. An example can be found almost everywhere around the world, where we see how big businesses offer a new product and how will consumer receive it.

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• Opening new Branches or Division:

After expending your product line, in order to reach more customer or advertise the new product, entrepreneur need to open new branches in other locations. This allow firm to expand into other areas where demand is high and supply is low.

• Exporting:

Many firm doing well domestically tend to be satisfied with their local sale throughout their existence. With the internet we have today, the market, customer taste, knowledge and competition are all global. Irrespective of the business one undertakes, there are many opportunities for growth in the international market. Exporting to other nations enables a company to have a unique competence (Porter, 1990).

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• Innovation:

This is the most important source of business growth. Peters and Waterman (1994) observed that innovative companies have the capacity to continually responding to changes in customers needs and which makes them better prepared to overcome new competitive or other factors such as environmental challenges. Innovation signifies nonstop change in the way a firm serves its customers or manage its business (Peters and Waterman 1994).

An entrepreneur or business manager need to keep coming up with ideas on how to take the business a step forward and stay ahead of the competition. This is very crucial in all businesses because without innovative ideas, the business will remain at the same point and customer may lose interest when new product line enters the market.

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• Creating and Maintaining Online Presence:

In the modern age we are now technology is involve in every aspect of our daily lives. When a firm employs modern information and communication technology it gains an edge over its competitors (Marco and Levien 2004, Mitra 2012). A firm can create a website where all its product and services are displace and this can be access by millions of people around the world. Example of business that many visit due to their advertised product are Aliexpress, Ebay and Amazon.

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• Franchising and Licensing:

These are mostly used by successful companies who have their own products or services when planning on expending their market more efficiently. Franchising can be considered a growth strategy when a firm allows another firm to make use of its successful business model. Example of popular business that allow franchising is McDonalds and Subway.

Licensing on the other hand is a contractual arrangement between two firms (Licensor and the Licensee) agreed that the licensee can use the licensor brand name, patent or any other intellectually property in exchange for either fee or royalty.

• Merger and Acquisition:

Merge is always assume to be two companies about the same size merging to become a single company why acquisition is when a larger company take over a smaller one. Well, this terms sometimes are used interchangeably. Companies merge or buy other companies in order to expand or consolidate their products.

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• Competition:

This may sound strange to how competition can be seen as a strategy for business growth but we all see competitors in different ways. In the global corporate scene, companies sometimes cannot afford to ignore the need to work with their competition in order to create new value. This is not a way to undermine competition, No but to allow firms compete and one level and collaborate at another with the aim of taking advantage of a new market or sometimes in order to develop a new product which is impossible to achieve on their own.

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Conclusion

These above explained strategies are effective ways a business can grow and reach new height. These strategies may also be used by small business because most small business owner thinks is difficult for they business to grow due to its size but they is one advantages small businesses have over big business which is interaction with customer directly. By talking to your customer directly you can learn your strength and witness and improve on them.

Thank you all for reading.

Business name:	Ai'nu Farm
Owner's name:	@weasell
Business address:	Zaria, Kaduna State, Nigeria.
About us:	Click Link.

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