Businesses want to expand. But if you’ve been put in the “small business box” by your bank or by your investors, growing can be difficult. All of a sudden, you start getting told that you’ve reached your market potential or that you’ve saturated the market. But is any of this true? Check out these cost-effective ways to expand your operation and get your company back on the path to growth.
Align Yourself With Other Brands And Businesses
Forming alliances with other brands and businesses can be a very effective way to grow a company faster. The best alliances are those that are based on the sale of complementary products. Say for instance that you want to set up a camping company. Buying out fields from farmers and setting up shop is difficult because of the high cost of land. But working with farmers and giving them a share of the profit means that you can expand your national network faster. Renting the land, or providing the farmer with royalties based on operational profits, is a lot easier than approaching venture capitalists or getting a loan from the bank.
Use Technology To Stay Competitive
One of the problem that agricultural and ecommerce businesses are facing at the moment is the lack of warehouse space. Farmers need warehouse space to store crops and agricultural products, and ecommerce companies need it for storing products. Technology, however, is bringing the cost of warehousing down all the time. New precast concrete methods mean that products can stay dry and protected from the elements for a fraction of the cost that they did in the past. For a company that knows about the installation of precast concrete products visit this site or search your local area.
Merge With Or Acquire Other Businesses In Your Segment
Sometimes gaining market share is difficult, especially when you’ve got an established competitor. Often competitors are much better able to serve a niche market than you are, despite your best efforts. Take Google as an example. Over the last four years, it’s snapped up dozens of different companies, including London’s DeepMind, the company behind the artificial intelligence that defeated the world champion Go player in 2016.
There are other examples too. Vonage, a big brand in VoIP telephone services has set out to acquire numerous startups and small businesses in its segment and is doing so to position itself as a market leader.
Acquiring isn’t the only option, of course. There’s also the opportunity to merge with other businesses. It’s important, however, to discuss any potential merger with all stakeholders in your business, including mentors, professional associations, customers, and staff.
Segment Your Market
Often companies hit a wall when they fail to segment their markets effectively. Segmenting a market means identifying groups of consumers with different characteristics and different needs. Narrowing down your customers in this way enables you to better target your advertising and design products that fulfil their criteria. Often, as part of your research, you’ll find that certain segments are underserved by the industry as a whole. It’s these people you want to target to take your business to the next level.