The Thames Valley GROWTH SPOTLIGHT
A quarterly insight from successful company leaders in association with Penningtons Manches
Sustaining growth in a changing business world
Maintaining sustainable growth is arguably the ‘holy grail’ of most companies – achieving it can be an ongoing business lifecycle challenge, writes John Burbedge
Growth by nature brings change – operational, personal, cultural and often international, to name but four potential disruptions.
It might be the challenge of change produced by the growth of a family business beyond its successful family roots and abilities. Or the challenge of growth-change following a successful strategic acquisition or merger. Or the growth-change challenges on entering new markets or foreign territories. Or
taking on new property leases, or even growth finance, or …
What are the secrets of achieving sustainable growth; the key ‘successful- growth’ pitfalls that can lead to business stagnation or failure; the best ways to avoid them?
It appears from the views of our five contributors from various sectors and business sizes that one key is to follow the Scout motto: Be Prepared.
Be fit and ready to grow – ready to overcome the challenges or grab the opportunities. Control what you can control; do well what you know best; create an accepted team culture; but overall be ready, willing and able to change, when necessary.
Or, use organisational change as a proactive business catalyst rather than simply preparing to be reactive, as several of our contributors note below.
Gerald Tombs, founder and CEO of Clearvision
offering tools, solutions, services and resources to take business teams and technology to the cloud.
For almost 14 years Tombs has been leading Southampton-based Clearvision (year-on-year growth of over 30% and now offices in USA, Ireland, India and South Africa) which helps support businesses with software development and staff collaboration –
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“Every journey starts with an initial step. It has taken me 20 years of business to realise that the best way to sustain growth with the least amount of challenges is to ensure every member of staff you hire matches the culture and views of the founders. This does not mean they cannot disagree with the founders – far from it – a good CEO will actively encourage staff voices and listen to other views, which then produce good, balanced decisions.
“The second key is to be constantly creative; moving with the times is essential. A company that invests time and energy to extend beyond
its comfort zone will attract staff wanting to grow with it. Part of this creative aspect is to recognise failure fast and not be afraid to close down a project, regardless of the investment, but, ensure you learn from such lessons.
“An area I’ve had to work very hard on is to relax the rules within the company and to trust staff. If you get the culture right and you remind everyone that the minimum rule is to be professional in all aspects of business, then this plays well with all ages of staff.
“My last point is to communicate with staff and customers often and not to be afraid of using different mediums eg blogs, vlogs, town hall meetings, etc.”
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2018
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