Scaling Up

The term “scale-up” is used here to refer to companies that have high growth potential. I tried to promote the methodology outlined in the first Scale Up Report when I was with Enterprise Ireland (that didn't work out... on multiple fronts!). Now I am involved in running a Scale Up project in East Sussex, and thought it might be helpful to look back at the research they did that has now spawned a host of Scale Up projects across the UK.

If you want to read the full details, learn more about the research, and see dozens of case studies of companies that have successfully scaled up their businesses, take a look at the work of The Scale-Up Institute.

I have written before about all the love and attention that's been given to start-up businesses over the last decade and as a result, hundreds of thousands of new businesses start-up each year in the UK. But we also know that most of them fail to survive. What the scale up model looks to do it provide support for those businesses that have a successful trading history of several years, and have already grown enough that they have taken on a handful of staff full time.

The companies that have gone through those initial growth challenges will face a new range of issue. Moving from being a company where everyone knows everyone, to one with a complex array of business functions across multiple locations is hard. A growing business has to fight off new competitors as well as the old ones, manage the growing team, keep suppliers competitive, motivate distributors, resellers and sales people, and a host of other things that emerge as the business grows.

Having good processes in place is key, so as you ramp up and push more activity through each part of the business, you can efficiently maintain control of the quality of the outputs.

No one can provide the answers on a plate, because it always requires hard work and dedication, but understanding the core challenges more clearly, the easier it is to build a plan to overcome them. 

And that is what the programme in East Sussex is all about - working with companies that have proven that their business model works, identifying the challenge facing the business to enable to them to scale their growth to the next level, and then building a plan to achieve just that.

Applications are open until the end of February 2019. Companies have to be based in the Newhaven area of East Sussex. See more information here