How to Successfully Expand Your Business

If your business has been performing consistently well, you may be starting to think about how you can build on this success. For many business owners, expanding to a new location is the logical next step when their business is thriving. However, expansion is something that needs to be weighed up carefully. Before you invest your resources into an expansion project, you need a clear idea of how well the business will perform in a different area. One mistake that business owners often make is to assume that because a company performs well in one location, any new branches that they open will enjoy the same success. However, it is rarely that simple; even if you have the best business model in the world, if you are up against an established competitor or your target market is small, your business will not thrive.

Here are some factors you will need to consider to make expanding your business into new locations a success:

Calculate Your Costs

Breaking down your expansion costs is vital to ensure that you have the resources available to cover the expenses involved. Going ahead with growing your business and then realizing that you don’t have the cash to finance it will jeopardize your company and cause you serious issues.

As well as ensuring you can cover the cost of setting up in a new location, you will also need to have a contingency in place and money available to act as a buffer while the new site becomes established. It could take quite a while for your new branch to turn a profit, so you will need to be able to support it while you wait for it to start generating its own healthy income.

Assess Your IT Capabilities

All businesses rely on technology to help them run. When you expand your business, the demand on your systems will be greater, so there are many aspects of your IT that you will need to consider. System downtime and lagging are issues that you don’t want to encounter when trying to open up in a new location, so getting some extra IT advice during this time is essential. You will need to think about how your existing set-up will cope with the expansion, and you need to consider whether you need dedicated servers or a cloud-based server.

Calling in extra IT support from a team of experts will help you to navigate the IT side of your business’s expansion and will be one less thing to worry about.

Consider Staffing Needs

One of the primary considerations when opening a new branch is who will be in charge. Do you plan to relocate your existing team members, or are you going to recruit a new team to run your new location, or maybe you are planning a combination of both? Picking the right employees to run your new site will play a significant part in the success of your expansion, so you will need to consider your options carefully.