It’s said that it’s every business owner’s dream to be able to expand at some point. If you’re planning to soar to greater heights soon, you may consider changes in your plans and daily operations. They may include offering a new product line, penetrating untapped markets, or move into a larger establishment.
A strategic plan is believed to be crucial to determine the best way to expand a business. Of course, funding and financial backing are also regarded as important pieces of the puzzle. In this article, you’ll learn different business expansion ideas and how to fund them.
1. Organic Business Expansion
The most common type of business expansion is organic growth. This involves offering more products and services as well as expanding your business space. Focusing on expanding your business organically involves expanding shifts to accelerate your production or buying a larger storefront that offers added space.
How suitable is organic growth expansion for your business? If you have a new business and you experience product shortages, for instance, additional production or space can meet and resolve these issues.
Here are some organic business expansion ideas you can try:
- Buying new and better equipment;
- Adding additional product displays in your store;
- Revamping your store signage and website; and
- Hiring more personnel to join your company.
How To Fund Organic Expansion: You need to ensure to source funding and set the right amount of budget for the added hours and overhead cost of day-to-day operations of your business. One way to fund this business expansion is to take out a loan from reputable lending companies online such as www.commercialloans.com.au and others.
2. Strategic Business Expansion
Has your business hit its plateau stage already? You can say this if your business has been doing good for a long time but it suddenly experienced a sudden halt in growth. Has it been this way for many years? If your answer is yes, then it’s probably high time to expand your business strategically.
Another way to grow your business is through strategic expansion which focuses on long-term goals to help sustain continued business growth. It’s believed that ideal businesses that have reached the peak success of their organic business growth can take on strategic business expansion by finding additional markets.
Check the following strategic business expansion ideas:
- Reach Untapped Markets
You can do this business expansion idea by creating an additional product line or collection to add to your existing offering. You can discover previously unreached markets by offering something out of your usual offerings.
This helps bring an element of surprise which may trigger the curiosity of your loyal customers and new target audience. For instance, if you’re selling women’s undergarments, you might want to try selling men’s undergarments this time to try testing out the waters.
- Try New Marketing Campaigns
This can be done by thinking out of the box and trying out different marketing strategies. For example, you can implement social media marketing and other digital marketing strategies to target younger and impressionable clients. On the other hand, you can reach more elderly people with direct mail marketing.
How To Fund Strategic Expansion: You need to ensure that you have satisfactory and consistent sales for a long period to allocate capital funding for business expansion.
3. Partnership, Merger, Or Acquisition
You can also partner, merge, or acquire another business to expand your company’s current foothold. By doing so, you’ll both benefit from each other’s audiences, enhance each other’s brands, and attain a higher return on investment or ROI.
Some ideas to expand your business through merger, acquisition, or partnership include the following:
- Partnering with an organic farm if you have a restaurant that sells organic food recipes;
- A digital marketing agency can merge with a software development company to create a more efficient system that offers one-stop-shop and in-demand services to clients; and
- A financial service company can acquire a local bank to offer additional services to native borrowers.
How To Fund Partnership Expansion: Both businesses can benefit from each other’s resources including finances, personnel, know-how, and the like. Hence, taking out funding from external sources is less likely.
4. Internal Business Growth
This type of business expansion involves using your current resources and determining how you can use them better to help your business’ development. An example would be your business can implement an automated workforce management system to make your day-to-day operations a lot faster and easier.
Internal business growth entails changing how you conduct a business. However, this may become a source of stress and fear for managers and frontline employees. But once everybody gets used to the new process, they’ll be rewarded with new learning and more opportunities for professional growth.
How To Fund Internal Expansion: You need to consider taking out a commercial loan for this type of expansion because investing in advanced business systems to improve your operations can be costly.
Conclusion
You can expand your business organically, strategically, or internally. You probably have great ideas in mind and are excited to implement them in your business. By brainstorming with your team and determining how to fund your business expansion, you’ll be able to attain the outcomes you aspire for your business.