Michael Banford is the associate director of Edge Hill University's SME productivity and innovation centre.
To date, 239 SMEs have accessed Edge Hill's fully-funded support to address their growth and scaleup challenges and opportunities, and develop financially feasible solutions.
Michael shares his scaleup expertise, the common challenges a scaleup leader faces and how to overcome these.
Critical reflection. Driving high growth through innovation requires a critically reflective mind-set with the ability to stand back and identify challenges and opportunities. This is coupled with a level of data literacy in which the leader is able to synthesise data through asking the right questions to guide decision making.
I wouldn’t identify one single individual, but what I am continually inspired by in the most successful scaleup leaders is their constant drive for continuous improvements and an open-mindedness to change to deliver greater impact.
Sometimes this is through radical innovations, but very often it is finding incremental innovations within the organisation.
In order to be able to innovate to drive a scaleup strategy and deliver competitive advantage, businesses need to have well-honed dynamic capabilities; the ability to integrate, reconfigure, and build internal and external competencies to address rapidly-changing environments.
The first stage in this as a process is ‘sensing’ challenges and opportunities and the main challenge I see in businesses is their ability to use data effectively to identify to drive decision making.
Tell customers the time, not how to build a watch.
Clarity of offer and value proposition is a key topic I regularly work with scaleup potential businesses on and is crucial for advancing market share to achieve scaleup. Many businesses fall into the trap of basing their offer too much around the processes or mechanics of what they do over focusing on the problems they solve and impact they can deliver.
Leadership in business is a lonely place where it can be hard to know you are doing the right thing. And executing a scaleup strategy is a highly challenging endeavour.
I have learned over time that the real value I offer business leaders is being a critical friend. Supportively, but assertively, enable the business leader to develop a clear understanding of their baseline performance and make clear, evidence-based decisions which provide real growth confidence.
Again, I wouldn’t single out any specific business, I have worked with many organisations who have successfully executed a scaleup strategy.
I have great admiration scaleups who understand and have in their objectives that their growth they will create excellent opportunities for people, uplift places and create technological advancements.
Income and profitability. Effective scaleup strategies are based on stimulating the business into a period of high growth through the more effective use, tracking and allocation of resources.
Understanding the value of available market segments (potential income) and, at a granular level, how efficiently they are servicing segments within that market (profitability by customer and/or project) is crucial.
Scaleups offer highly significant benefits to regional and the national economy. Their levels of employment creation, innovation, and wealth creation is several factors higher than other businesses.
It is vitally important that businesses with scaleup potential can be found and supported effectively. Scaleup leaders are also often some of the most interesting, passionate, and enthusiastic people I work with professionally.
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