Your business grows steadily with well-structured processes and the right people in place. But it is not enough for you. You are driven to succeed with ambitions of taking your business to the next level. Before you embark on your journey, there are a few things that need to be in place.

1. Remember This As You Scale Up Your Business
Your business grows steadily with well-structured processes and the right people in place. But it
is not enough for you. You are driven to succeed with ambitions of taking your business to the
next level. Before you embark on your journey, there are a few things that need to be in place.
Create clear, realistic goals and stay accountable to them. Remain analytical and look at your
company from a customers perspective to identify its core competencies, strengths and
processes. Armed with that knowledge, you can decide upon the best path for growth.
Share your vision with your team till they share it too and reinforce it. Now, you and everyone
around you will be working towards the goal of scaling up your business together. With that in
place, let's look at points to keep in mind to successfully scale your business.
Know Your Market
Half the preparation is in knowing what the market wants and how to supply it. If you know what
functions customers use most and the features that drive engagement then you are better able
to plan your next steps. During my time at Colgate, gel-based toothpaste accounted for 25%
market share of the toothpaste segment with Hindustan Lever as market leader. Colgate
conducted market research and found out that that taste was a driving factor in the segment. It
seized the opportunity and took the organic, launching gel-based toothpaste Maxfresh, a brand
that is still going strong today.
Keeping in sync with the market will help time expansion plans and make the most of
opportunities. A few years ago, the market might not have been ready for the Internet of things
(IoT) but the time is now ripe to fund expansion plans and conduct R&D. While expanding
organically makes sense in uncharted markets, it is sometimes faster and more effective to
enter established industries through inorganic scaling.
Organic and Inorganic Growth
Scaling up a business can generally take two paths - organic or inorganic growth. Organic
growth is an internal process where you grow your business through strong planning,
management and marketing. You push your products into new markets, develop new product
lines or dive into business development. An example of organic growth is the company Syska
LED. It started off as a electrical appliance company producing LED-based lighting solutions
and went on to increase its product portfolio to include personal care products and consumer
appliances. All this was done without acquiring or merging with another business.
However, if you wish to grow quickly and at scale, inorganic growth may be the route for you. By
making a deal with another business, you can immediately get new clients or double your
business. The deal might mean acquiring another business or part of it, or merging with them.
Havells was able to inorganically scale their business and gain a foothold in the fast-growing
consumer appliances market by purchasing Lloyd Electric in 2017.
Manage Manpower
As your business continues to scale, follow up with your employees and find out whether they
enjoy their new roles or if there is anything they would like to do. Keep the team flexible with
complementary skills so that even if roles change, the team is still working towards the main
goals of the company. As members change, so too will you have to re-evaluate KPIs.

2. In case of mergers or acquisitions, wait to see how both teams interact and establish
themselves. Efficient scaling requires manpower counting and retrenchment if there are
duplicacies with the probable exception of the R&D departments. The recent Idea and Vodafone
merger saw a lot of overlap and need to restructure. In contrast, when Japan-based Panasonic
acquired domestic market leader Anchor, there were fewer duplicacies since they were in
different geographical regions.
Timing and Positioning
Along with your research and manufacturing capabilities, you should scale your sales and
marketing departments. That way, you will a stable process in place and enough manpower to
generate and close leads. Product placement plays a vital role in scaling up operations. If you
are servicing a distribution network, ensure that the product is available with as many retailers
as possible to increase width and increase depth by upselling or cross-selling to repeat
customers.
Startups introduce many new concepts and ideas that only work if their timing and positioning
make sense. Paytm owed part of its meteoric rise to demonetisation and Oyo made use of their
first-mover advantage. On a cautionary note, startups may scale up very quickly but
standardised and repeatable processes need to be implemented for sustainability.
Along with proper support systems and a delegation structure, don’t forget to build your
relationships with those outside as well. Cultivate healthy relationships with partners such as
suppliers, customers or service providers. A large network can provide you with important
market information or lead to future deals or partnerships.
Build Your Brand
Many of these brand building activities require capital but sometimes it is more important to
target people who are most likely to be interested in your product, have interacted with your
business before or meet the criteria that your customer demographic shares to get the best
results.
Brands may leverage social media or any other medium to create brand recall but the less well-
known the harder they have to work to be recognised. While most knew of Paytm, PhonePe
(owned by Flipkart) is able to advertise more aggressively thanks to capital infusion from the
Walmart takeover, but still has some catching up to do.
Taking an analytical and honest approach is key to knowing your company’s real strengths and
weaknesses. It is a long road to success and likely disheartening at times. In place of the
temporary happiness of rapid expansion, focus instead on long-term goals and maintain your
perspective instead of distractions and competitors to realise sustainable success.