How can small businesses empower growth, but maintain brand loyalty? There are four tactics that smaller companies can leverage to ensure that they achieve their business objectives whilst retaining a high level of customer satisfaction and loyalty.
1. Define purpose and fuel organic growth
Businesses must start with defining their purpose, and how their current brand proposition fits into their expansion plans. Once everyone is on board, there are some short-term, organic growth boosters to pursue. For instance, businesses can start by trimming overhead and boosting sales to existing customers through cross sell and upsell opportunities.
2. Standardise processes and centralise on a platform
Expansion comes with a host of unknowns. Where will you find staff? What are the new regulations and laws? How can I create desire for our product so customers want it? Previously, Cloud Accounting, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Supply Chain Management (SCM) systems were only in reach of the biggest companies, however, the cloud has democratised access, and given small businesses a leg up on much larger competitors held back by legacy on-premise systems.
When it comes time to expand, having standardised processes on a cloud-based platform allows you to run your processes the same way, regardless of where business is located. It provides best practices for repeatable infrastructure when entering new markets, as well as end-to-end visibility across operations.
Cloud-based software, with its scalability, agility and low total cost of ownership, empowers businesses to manage growth on their own terms. By automating tedious manual tasks like tax compliance, multi-currency transactions, and more, it eases some major barriers to entering international markets.
3. Forge strong partnerships
Another very good option for gaining market share without risking capital is forging partnerships with larger companies. This offers immediate access to existing retail networks, supply chains and a well-established customer base. The most successful partnerships take into account branding, cross-selling and exclusivity arrangements – to negotiate for full control over logistics, staffing and other customer service essentials. Every partnership should seek to maintain control over brand identity while minimising complexity.
4. Leverage data
With end-to-end visibility across operations, executives have easy access to data to make insight-driven business decisions on how and where to grow. For instance, robust reporting allows you to regularly compare financial data from different stores or channels to identify trends that might impact long-term growth, such as cash flow or liquidity. Data from the cloud accounting, ERP and supply chain platforms can help drive actionable sales opportunities, personalise marketing outreach to drive greater loyalty from customers, and increase customer satisfaction by ensuring accurate inventory levels and streamlining logistics.
With a cloud-based platform as their foundation, new product introduction and international growth is within the reach of small businesses, which can leverage technology to out-innovate much larger competitors.
NOVA can take your business to the next level
NOVA helped over 2,000 businesses worldwide to streamline their business and accelerate strategic digital transformation, with one collaborative, scalable cloud accounting solution, and Human Resource Management Solution (HRMS). Our solution maximises business’s value by offering powerful budgeting and forecasting capabilities with real-time accessible data, to everyone who needs to see such information. Accessibility boosts participation and accountability, making it easier to get meaningful input and engagement.
Learn more about our cloud financial solutions or schedule a free consultation with us now.
