Michelle Rodger: Focus on customers and staff if you're going for growth

Published on Saturday 3 October 2009 13:37

GROWING a business of scale is every entrepreneur's dream, but the means of doing so can be the stuff of nightmares.

Clearly there's a chasm of difference between high growth and rapid growth – not least of which is the size and shape of support and funding available from backers. But whether you are a 200,000, 2 million or 12m company growing or doubling or trebling in size, the challenges are similar; putting in place the right systems and processes, managing cash and, crucially, keeping your customer focus.

If you ask those experiencing growth successfully, they will tell you that finding the right employees is key to growing a business that remains not only customer facing but customer responsive.

As managing director of a company that has grown from 2m to 6m to 12m in the past two years, Paul Sweeney says it's difficult when you are expanding to keep the customer at the heart of what you do.

Sweeney, co-founder and MD of ANS Group, believes quality is essential. He says that poor quality causes problems that eat into the time he wants to devote to his customers. And he warns: "The massive challenge is finding the right people with the right attitude."

He has spent the past six months putting in place the foundations for astonishing projected growth over the next 12 months. Over and above appointing an experienced operations director to free him up to be more involved in customer service, Sweeney has spent six months interviewing 70 people to recruit 12 new employees, all motivated and customer-focused individuals. It is costing him 250,000, upfront of any new sales. Sweeney believes in training and inducting staff well ahead of sending them out to meet the customer.

Cisco's David Critchley says that when it comes down to small businesses, what often sets them apart from the competition is dedication and interaction with their customers. But as businesses expand, it's easy for that focus to become diluted across new areas and new challenges.

A savvy business understands that great customer relations are integral to all organisations, regardless of size, advises Critchley, who is head of SME and commercial for Cisco. "While sales and business development will be a key priority, organic growth is an important source of revenue as well," he says. "Existing customers form the basis of any organisation's ongoing success so it's important not to take them for granted in the search for new opportunities."

Rooms You Love, an internet business specialising in bedroom furniture and furnishings for babies and children, has enjoyed recent growth and anticipates further increased sales.

Co-founder Gillian Forrest says one of her main challenges in managing a growing business is being able to have a personal touch with customers. "We can overcome this by using the many social and media tools available to us," she says. "Along with the traditional forms of communication, new social networking sites enable us to remain personal in our marketing messages."

IT business Provista has enjoyed exponential growth over the past few years. Since launching in 2005 Provista has reached turnover of 2m, and predicts 4m next year. With 1m of orders already secured in the first month of the financial year, that target seems realistic.

But director Stuart Little remains cautious. He's aware that the most important risk to growth is that a business becomes internally focused on its growing pains. "This can have disastrous results as focus is lost on customers," Little says. "This will result eventually in attrition of customers and lost revenue."

As a technology company with all the hi-tech tools at its fingertips, you would think you would have an advantage. Apparently not so. Mike Hambly, who heads the Scottish Enterprise High Growth Team, says that while customer focus is crucial, too often high-growth start-ups are founded by good technical people, focused too much on the product and not enough on what customers want or expect.

"The product might be brilliant but if you can't explain why your offer is unique and offer real customer service then it's as good as useless," he says.

Scottish Enterprise defines high growth as having businesses with the potential to achieve 5m turnover in three years, and be global in scale or have global aspirations. To do so, Hambly says, you need to get three crucial elements right: product – does the market want it and understand your differentiation; people – a good team with the right experience; and finance – which invariably follows if you get the first two right.

Ensuring you have all the necessary systems and processes – admin, HR, IT and accounting – in place as the foundations is essential and, in itself, not that easy, but beyond that the biggest challenge to growing your business significantly – rapidly or in turnover/profitability – is keeping in touch with your customer base.

Without customers, you don't have a business.