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A scale-up business is any firm that is looking to grow in terms of market access, revenues, and number of employees, adding value by identifying and realising new opportunities. Scale-up businesses are the engine of growth for the UK economy, creating wealth, opportunities and employment in a competitive environment.

Organic versus inorganic growth

Firms can scale up in one of two ways. They can focus on organic growth - growing gradually thorough increased sales and market share. Alternatively they can scale up through inorganic growth strategies such as through an acquisition or a merger with another business.

Commit to growth

Scaling up a business takes a huge amount of time and effort so you need to ensure that your management team is committed to growing the business. You and your team will need to create realistic growth targets and develop plans and concrete actions of how growth will be achieved.

Upskill your team

Your management team will have a given level of expertise. However, delivering a growth strategy may require an expanded skillset. Take the time to identify the skills required to realise your growth strategy. Do you have people with good management experience, an understanding of the relevant technology, good financial skills and a background in change management? If not, you will need to upskill your current team or hire in experienced professionals to help drive growth.

Collaborate

In order to scale up your business you will need to create partnerships with people and firms outside of your business. Consider your routes to market and identify potential service providers, sales channel partners, suppliers and key clients who you can work with in order to form alliances which will drive the growth of your business.

 

If you are focused on expanding into new markets, you will need to create collaborative business relationships with sales partners and suppliers in those countries, and may need to create formal agreements with these new business partners.