Generate Success

How Companies Really Grow

For some people, setting up as a self-employed business person is for personal reasons; a preference to be at home, work around family-life or simply not be a slave to commuting and a big boss.

To others the idea is to start a business that will in turn grow into something bigger.

Growing pains can be one of the hardest things a company can suffer.  If all is going well and business is good, the way in which a business manages its growth can make or break a company.

I’ve seen this at first hand, where an entrepreneur starts a business, the company excels and grows at an exponential rate without being managed correctly; and the walls come tumbling down.

In such cases this is because the warning signs are not heeded or growth explodes before profit allows for sustainability.

In his book, How Companies Really Grow, Ciaran Walsh explains how to grow a successful business.  By recounting various real life client scenarios he breaks down the process in six easy to follow phases:

• The Creative Phase – when and how you devise an idea for your business

• The Analysis Phase – researching and collecting information to ensure your business idea will work

• The Reactive Phase – where you start to sell your products or services and react to customer feedback

• The Processes Phase – when you are achieving enough sales to make a profit

• The Empowerment Phase – when your business achieves enough growth that you need to delegate to others

• The Divisions Phase – when you create and separate divisions that differ from your main business

One of the main problems that small businesses have as they begin to see growth, according to Walsh, is to carry out inappropriate activities while in the wrong phase of growth. Whether it be writing long term business plans while still in the “Analysis Phase” or launching too many new products at once while in the “Reactive Phase” that causes confusing results.

Others small business owners do not calculate the right time to delegate to others; doing so too early or too late leads to dire consequences.  Again, I have seen this myself in several companies I have worked with where a manager wants to step away from the day-to-day management duties and another whereby his ‘closeness’ turned from a leadership quality to one of interference that stopped others doing their jobs.

Each phase of this enlightening and very easy to read book follows on from the last in a linear fashion and needs to be read from cover to cover rather than be used as a point of reference to drop in and out of.  This book is a valuable source for any start-up or small business owner who is looking to grow their business.

In this book Ciaran Walsh draws on his own experience of running a successful business for 13 years and the knowledge he has of over 200 entrepreneur-led businesses with which he has help to grow.  He has also been a director of many privately owned and Plc companies based both in the UK and overseas.

How Companies Really Grow by Ciaran Walsh is published by Matador priced £19.95