Category: Featured News

4 Steps to Take When Scaling Up as an SME

Small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs) face a unique set of challenges when attempting to scale up into the realm of large corporations.

The upper end of the SME spectrum already represents a high level of business, so to expand even further can require an entirely new way of doing things. In other words, whatever has been working for the company thus far may not even be applicable once you being to scale into the big leagues. If you’re trying to bring your business from a burgeoning SME to a Fortune 500 company, check out the following four tips:

  1. Switch to Managed Services

When your operations are still relatively manageable, it’s easy to leave all technological tasks in-house. However, as business volume begins to increase dramatically, and the load on your servers and software systems becomes intense, you ‘ll eventually find the need to upgrade to fully managed services. For example, many larger companies are starting to use software-defined wide area networks (SD WANs) to increase bandwidth availability and boost network performance. Of course, the logical next step would be to find a company that can help you manage such complex systems effectively.

  1. Develop Advanced Productivity Systems

Maximizing productivity is absolutely essential when you’re trying to compete in the high rankings of any modern industry. To achieve this goal, you may need to start using enterprise project management platforms, employee performance monitoring software, productivity coaching and consultations, and any other products or services that can help your teams get more done in less time.

  1. Set Growth Goals and Projections

If you examine the leadership practices of major corporations, one thing you’ll notice that they all have in common is the policy of holding well-planned business meetings to discuss the short-term future of the company. Creating a comprehensive game plan that is designed to facilitate precise achievements will keep your entire company on the same page as you work towards very specific and realistic goals.

  1. Bring in New Leadership

If your current management team has never dealt with the difficulties of operating a major corporation, it’s unlikely that they’ll be the best candidates for the job going forward, That’s not say that you should immediately fire everyone who has helped your company get to where it is today, but it’s definitely wise to consider the addition of leaders who possess extensive experience in corporate administration.

SME Commerce SuccessBonus Tip: Arrange Flexible Financing

Finally, one more step you can take to position your SME for optimal growth is to reduce the overall cash flow burden by arranging more flexible forms of financing such as invoice factoring. Essentially, it’s good to consider any form of financing that will allow you to make investments, purchase inventory, fulfill orders, and perform other crucial operating tasks without significantly hurting your bottom line. While creating an exuberant amount of company debt isn’t recommended, it’s better to rely partially on external financing than to depend solely on the company’s available capital.

 

How to Launch a Mobile Product

When launching a mobile product with your business, there are several aspects which you need to take into consideration to compete with the big brands.

Using this guide, you will be able to establish the basics of the process, ensure that you can create your own product from scratch and market this successfully.

Design Your Product
Firstly, you should ensure that you can design all of the different elements of your product as this will be what sells your product to a larger audience. To do this, you should look at investing in software that can help you to design your product and complete the process smoothly. If you are designing an electrical or tech product, you will know how vital PCBs are to the process. To ensure that you can get the right PCBs for your process, you should consider designing these yourself using specialized PCB viewer software to ensure that you can share your designs will all members of your team, including your manufacturers.

Launch a Mobile Product

Create a Prototype
Creating a prototype can be extremely helpful to do before you launch your mobile product for many reasons. For instance, creating a prototype will help you to determine if there are any faults or issues with your product, which you can then fix before it goes into service. Not only this but creating a prototype will also help the marketing aspect of your product launch, as you will be able to take this to pitches and possible investors to showcase how your product will work. Some of the equipment that you may need for this includes gadgets such as 3D printers, which can help you to bring your product to life simply from your office or home.

Find a Manufacturer
Finding a manufacturer is key to the process of your product launch, and you should ensure that you do your research of the industry before you decide on a manufacturer to work with. You will need to work with the manufacturer to decide whether your prototype can be adapted to the specifications of their factory processes. There are many online resources which can help you find the best factory for you, and you should ensure that the factory that you choose demonstrates the appropriate level of knowledge for your product and the industry, and well as having the skills and capabilities to create the product that you desire.

Hold a Launch Event
A launch event will help to attract attention to your product and build anticipation towards it. Additionally, you can build anticipation by showing your product to be desirable through establishing a pre-order system that will get people excited. Not only this, but this will also give you instant cash flow in the first couple of days of your launch. When planning your launch, you should ensure that you invite industry professionals and investors who may be interested in your product, as well as ensuring that you market this product well by sending newsletters through email marketing and holding social media campaigns and promotions.