"Scaling-up is tough..."- About growth tipping points & barriers. A mind the growth series

The need for growth is a relentless quest for all businesses, irrespective of small or large. They all face barriers - SMEs transitioning from entrepreneurial to managed businesses by building commercial expertise, and big companies leveraging scale by prioritizing and managing resources to their advantage. All face their very own growth tipping points which are specific to brands and companies.

Scaling up any business is tough!

Since it rarely follows a linear process, driving growth is more complex than just doing “more of the same”. Evolving and balancing the areas of A) MARKETING (brand/product) B) GO TO MARKET choices and C) PEOPLE (team/capabilities/ culture) and its interdependencies can elevate complexities to a new level - you change one and it impacts the others.

During my professional journey I transitioned from Senior Marketing roles in GSK to managing (and now consulting) smaller businesses, facing many of above challenges. After 2 recent assignments in General Manager roles, I wanted to continue learning from other people’s experiences - what were the type of strategic decisions they had to make when scaling up?

My research led to the “mind the growth” white paper, based on 45 stakeholder interviews and numerous case studies, speaking to Founders, CEOs, other C-level functions, NEDs and Chairs. Whilst large parts were Health & Wellness industry-related, we also talked to Unilever, Lego, dm Germany, creative agencies and consultancies.

What we heard (and equally importantly, didn’t hear) was eye opening. I’d like to share our top 10 learnings with specific detail & recommendations over the next few months in a “mind the growth series” and invite you to a dialogue regarding Key Success Factors for scaling-up whilst offering innovative tools, frameworks and advise.  

Hope you will find the series helpful – please feel free to reach out to andy@mindthegrowth.co.uk