February 23, 2024 | Blog

Risk is part of every business. Without risk, no business will ever thrive. From small, and medium, to enterprise-level companies, all sacrificed something to achieve where they are now. It’s like legit gambling. The only difference between actual gambling and business is that businesses do support other people. When your company succeeds, your people thrive, and the business continues to provide job and career opportunities.

The risk most businesses are afraid to take, however, is when growth knocks on their door. It offers a simple fact that the opportunity to expand whether from small to medium or from medium to enterprise level, the anticipated risk overwhelms any organization. In the article shared by Business Queensland of Australia, they explained the importance of anticipating the pros and cons of quick and sudden growth without strategic planning to address each issue that may arise, from financial aspects, legality, staffing and hiring people, and resources, funds, suppliers, and to business partners.” For business growth to be successful, it should be sustainable,” they said. 

IT Group, Inc. (ITG), one of the leading IT Solution Partners in the Philippines and the ASEAN region, understands the importance of addressing these issues. Here are the simple do’s and don’ts when your business starts to grow and is ready to expand.

Be True to Your Core

Don’t lose yourself in the process of growing. But keep yourself mindful in the process of growing. For most businesses, whenever growth already sprouts, the first thing that happens is losing their business identity. Expansion doesn’t mean drastic change. It means reinviting your organization as a bigger and better company. What happens most of the time, businesses tend to break under the pressure of customer demand and the hype of business trends, creating a gap between who you are and what you do as a company. Adopting too much and bending rules can affect the uniqueness of your main sale point as a business—being true to who you are as a company.

Do an assessment. Visualize how you want the world to know about your business and brand. Make sure it is anchored to your organization’s purpose and objectives. To be effective in your branding, align it to your mission and vision in that way you remain true to your core. It’s okay to add new products and services, expand the scope of your business, or branch out to another subsidiary, channel, or medium, but make sure that whenever clients remember your name, they’ll understand in a snap what products or services you offer. 

Get The Right Business Perspectives

Don’t fall for familiarity, whether with the old-fashioned mindset or traditional business methods, you should always widen your perspective and never limit yourself to what you used to do. Your business perspective should always be aligned with your business goals. If the goal isn’t clear, defined, and measurable, you’ll create hit-and-miss scenarios, resulting in blurred actions and vague approaches when achieving your business goals. Cris P. Gamboa, IT Group, Inc.’s president and CEO, shared his take during IT Group, Inc.  20 years celebration in the IT Industry as to why it’s important to have the right business perspective and discipline to follow through. “The secret behind any success is discipline. We kept progressing to our present-day business scope and size because we were committed and disciplined in our approach to making decisions and choosing our growth opportunities. Strategy is not just about selecting what to do, but also what not to do,” he said.

Also read: Tech and Business Insights for 2024   

Do your research. Create a strategic plan. Engage with the right partners, key leaders, and industry experts. Study your niches, your target market, and your competitors, too. The most exciting part of knowing new business perspectives lies in how we do cognitive empathy for our competitors. To John Horn, author of Inside the Competitor’s Mindset, it is the case. He explained during David Schwartz‘s interview for  McKinsey Global Publishing, Author Talks, that businesses see their competitor as a threat rather than a colleague in the same industry. 

Most of us rely on “competitive intelligence”, which Horn defined as the standard term when gaining data about our competitors. Horn, however, prefers “competitive insights”, where we gain data and turn it into knowledge by having an insightful and analytical thought process, which begs the question of their vantage point: what this information tells us about. From there, you move forward.

Invest Properly

Don’t invest your hard-earned money without proper and strategic budget planning. Only invest it when you have a concrete and solid plan. Although growth brings revenue, always keep track of your earnings, investment, and spending. If your revenue can’t cover your current and future expenses, sure growth will not only be stagnant, but worse, your business can face bankruptcy before it reaches its peak of success. Business Queensland of Australia also added the kind of dilemma your business starts to bigger. “There may be a shortage of cash to meet expansion costs. Taking on more and more work to generate more income places additional pressure on your premises and staff,” they said. 

According to Sean Peak, a writer from Business.com, poor cash flow management will cause revenue loss easily, advising key business leaders to prevent cash flow problems such as late payments, lack of profitability, withheld investments or funds, tax filing, undervalued products and services, out-of-scope jobs, and old and outdated assets or equipment.

Also read: 7 Ways to Get Your Business Successful this 2024

Do the actual investment with business goals in mind. If your company starts to expand, the common question is always where to invest first. People. Get the right team to do the job and find financial experts such as chief financial officers, accountants, portfolio managers, business analysts, tax specialists, auditors, and bankers, to name a few. Aside from finance departments, ensure you have a workforce fit for the expanding job. Before hiring, promote people from within and mix them with a new additional team that can help you get a fresh perspective, welcoming new ideas for effective and efficient collaboration. Next is proper investment. Expansion and growth mean better space, assets, and equipment for your people, whether your set-up is hybrid, work-from-home, or office-based. Think of it as a long-term investment because all of these will return in time. It is a gradual return on your investment that will ensure sustainable and stable growth.

Ask the Experts

Don’t overdo the work alone. Delegate tasks and ask for experts’ help because growth is overwhelming. When growth is handled right, business will flourish. When handled wrong, your business can diminish. That’s why businesses should have diverse people with diverse skillsets and expertise. Acknowledge that growth starts when we accept we need others to achieve undeniable success. When we say expert, it is not solely and exclusively for people in business but also technological experts, who are also key players in business growth as technology—in the modern-day world— shapes the trajectory of business

Also read: ‘Data Privacy’: Our Tech Experts Share Their Insights 

Do ask your Tech Experts. Recognize you can’t do it all. Everyone has their limit, especially when we talk about skills. You can’t be good at everything and expert all at once. The good thing is that you can rely on someone and ask for their expertise, like our Tech Experts. ITG has been in the business helping 200+ clients in their digital transformation, together with our globally recognized solutions partners, promoting tech and innovation across the ASEAN region. 

Daniel Dobrygowski in his Harvard Business Review, supported the thought of why you should trust in technology and its experts to help your business grow and expand. “Trust in technology is a reflection of the decisions people make when they develop the tech, use it, and implement it. The first investment leaders need to make is to take the time and energy to truly understand the impact of the technologies they create or deploy,” he said. “Developing a realistic and comprehensive vision for how an organization uses technology in service of its goals and those of the people who rely on it determines how an organization will invest in digital trust.”

Solution Oriented

Don’t be stuck with the problem, be solution-oriented. In many cases, the challenges in your business have been experienced by others, too. The only difference is that how you approach it. With the right business perspective, sustainable and profitable investment, and experts to rely on, you can approach your problem with hundreds of solutions. The crucial part is how accurate and data-driven your next move will be.  At the end of the day, you mean business, which growth should translate to revenue. 

Do problem-solving based on accurate and reliable data. If the problem is not quantifiable or measurable it deserves a holistic approach. But most of the time, when your business starts to grow it is about the number game. Data like numbers, reports, and any other information are important in creating business decisions. To be solution-oriented, you have to be surrounded with proper guidance by knowing where your business stands through your financial and overall business data. By then, you can act accordingly, whether it’s time to expand bigger, risk branching out, or take a little step backward to test the water first. Proper actions solve business challenges. That’s how you ensure you are solution-oriented

Expand Your Business and Let’s Venture Together

Excited to expand your business? We are too!  ITG, with its technological partners, is here to help and support your growing business needs. With our solid expertise for over 20 years, ITG is ready to help you expand your business through digital transformation.

ITG is your leading technology partner for system-wide innovative solutions to accelerate your business plans and goals, delivering seamless integrations and processes, from Business Management Solutions, IT Management, Integration & Automation, and Enterprise Data Management to IT Infrastructure.