So skalieren Sie ein Unternehmen

Ein Unternehmen zu führen ist immer spannend.

Navigating the opportunities and challenges is the core of what business leaders think about daily. Today, with advances in technology, having a scalable business model is increasingly necessary to compete and profit.

A scalable business can maintain or improve profitability when the volume of sales increases. It’s important to first understand what being scalable means.

Der Bedeutung des exponentiellen Wachstums

Most businesses experience linear growth.  For example, for every one input you spend, you receive a slight return above that input. Most companies receive growth from 0-10% a year, and revenue growth can be more stable at larger companies.  

Bei dienstleistungsorientierten Unternehmen mit linearem Wachstum kann die Rentabilität durch die Anzahl der Mitarbeiter begrenzt sein. Ein Projekt kann also einen Projektmanager erfordern. Härtere Arbeit wird oft als Mittel zur Leistungssteigerung propagiert.

However, exponential growth is what bankers, investors, and shareholders want.  Scalable businesses emphasize exponential growth. For every one input, you receive significantly higher gains that compound.  With this model, the growth rate of your business grows more rapidly as its size increases. These businesses often have “Network Effects”, where additional users of a product have a much more significant impact on the value of that product to others, and the value of the product increases more because there are more users. This growth model emphasizes the importance of working smarter, rather than harder.

Aufbau eines skalierbaren Unternehmens

To achieve scalability, business leaders often must think about eliminating, raising, reducing, and creating certain features.  Often referred to as Digital Disruption, Business Model Innovation, or Digital Transformation, these activities to create a scalable business transform how businesses work and provide uncommon value to customers. Below are ways to create scalable business models.

1. Steigern Sie den Wissensaustausch in Ihrem Unternehmen

Information and expertise is often lost, neglecte,d and underleveraged.  Buried in emails and silos, valuable information can be used for growth.  Sharing information is one way of becoming more scalable.

Consider the following opportunities for boosting knowledge sharing within an organization:

• Nutzung von Daten zur Identifizierung neuer Möglichkeiten und neuer Produkte/Dienstleistungen
• Informationsaustausch zwischen Mitarbeitern für schnellere und bessere Entscheidungen
• Reducing waste, redundancy, and inefficiency

Information portals such as SharePoint and Honey, can immediately boost information sharing across geographies and even within offices.  Employees can better track milestones and assign task. Documents and shared resources can help the company rapidly provide sales materials and materials that boost productivity.  Some large companies even have alumni portals where alumni can share expertise.

The reason behind this approach is simple. Sending emails all the time makes things very hard to track and leverage in the future. Working in silos limits what the organization can leverage.  With cloud collaboration tools like Slack, work and communication become faster and easier. You can create groups for every team, see files and communication history. Teams that share knowledge rapidly can boost their performance.  Known as synergy, a high-performing company that shares knowledge across all departments can often outperform individuals and groups working in silos.

2. Prozesse automatisieren

Automation can reduce manual and time-consuming tasks that provide low value.  Often, manual processes create bottlenecks that limit the broader company and impact customers.  To automate, first, you need to identify each business process. You then have to figure out where the bottlenecks are and what are the underperforming and low-value parts of your offering.  Once those problem processes are identified, you can evaluate whether automation can address the bottlenecks.

Durch Automatisierung sparen Mitarbeiter Zeit, sodass sie sich auf wichtigere strategische Prioritäten konzentrieren können, die dem Unternehmen Mehrwert bringen. Da die Automatisierung softwarebasiert ist, können Sie sie außerdem jederzeit aktualisieren, wenn Ihr Unternehmen wächst.

To automate, you can use third-party software.  To achieve even more substantial gains, your business can use data science, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and proprietary algorithms. While hiring data science professionals can be expensive, it can achieve exponential gains in productivity, and performance. It can also achieve a competitive advantage and prevent new entrants from entering your market.

3. Manuelle oder sehr repetitive Aufgaben auslagern

When you want to focus on growth, one of the main things to avoid is spending tons of time on menial tasks. A scalable business should always be ready to outsource repetitive tasks when needed. Outsourcing may be able to provide an immediate boost to scalability through lower costs and larger volume.  Although outsourcing can boost profitability, it’s important to note that it may not always achieve exponential growth. It may just provide linear reductions to the cost structure. Identifying paradigm-shifting outsourcing opportunities today are an opportunity, but can be more challenging to sustain.

4. Aktivitäten neu ordnen

Processes can be limited by bottlenecks, inefficiencies and risks.  A slow department, laborious approval processes, machines that breakdown, shipping times and natural disasters for example can severely impact a company.  Changing the order of activities can boost productivity. Moving one activity earlier in a process can for example reduce inefficiencies later on in a process.  An example is having a resource already available early on in the process can reduce lead time or waiting time later on in the process.

5. Prozesse standardisieren

Dies widerspricht möglicherweise konventionellen Normen, bei denen heute die Massenanfertigung im Vordergrund steht. Die Standardisierung von Prozessen kann die Produktion vereinfachen und die Kosten senken.

Durch die Standardisierung von Prozessen kann der Personalbedarf verringert und das Risiko gesenkt werden. Einige Unternehmen nutzen die Standardisierung mit einigen Anpassungen. Dabei handelt es sich um ein Phänomen, das als Modularisierung bezeichnet wird. Dabei ist das Basisprodukt standardisiert, einige Funktionen sind jedoch anpassbar.

6. Reduzieren Sie das Risiko

Reducing risk can make a business more scalable.  By outsourcing risky activities, a company can avoid challenges that it cannot easily address.  Accumulating excess inventory can be a risk in many industries. Some companies use Just-in-Time Inventory management to produce or receive resources only when an order is placed.  Companies like Zara and Dell Computers have created paradigm-shifting business models that avoid excess inventory and that create advantages that competitors cannot easily replicate.

7. Erstellen Sie eine Plattform

Many companies operate on a project-by-project basis, particularly in service-based businesses.  This can lead to situations where companies are not fully utilizing what they produced. Data sources, information, and products are less able to be leveraged for other customers.  Creating a platform solves this. The company can produce a data source or service and then sell that to a much larger audience. That allows companies to lower the marginal costs of production and distribute the service to a larger number of customers.  That is the definition of scalability. Examples of successful platforms are IBM Watson and Netflix.

8. Wandeln Sie ein Produkt in ein Abonnement um

In the media industry, following the decline of CDs and DVDs, Apple led one of the largest transformations in media.  Apple created itunes so customers could download what they wanted whenever they wanted, avoiding the hassle and extra costs of going to CD stores.  This paradigm shift gave Apple a scalable advantage where it transformed the way consumers listened to music. After some time, however, this scalable advantage eroded as other competitors entered the market.  

For example, Spotify found a way to turn a product (Music singles) into a subscription where people pay a low monthly fee to get unlimited songs in one single apple.  This provided recurrent revenue streams rather than one one-time purchase on iTunes. 

Abonnements are a powerful way to achieve scalability and profitability.  However, with these examples, it is important to note that even after a major business model innovation and large initial gains, competitors are likely to enter your market in the long run.  Continued innovation and customer insights are necessary for sustained scalability.

9. Steigern Sie die Produktivität der Ressourcen

You can boost productivity by doing more with the same resources.  Examples include increasing utilization. You can also boost productivity by doing the same things with fewer resources. You can adjust the process through Continuous Improvement and by constantly reducing inefficiencies.  Process improvement and reducing bottlenecks can lead to increasing productivity.

10. Gehen Sie stromaufwärts oder erhöhen Sie die Lautstärke

You can become more scalable by increasing volume.  If you discovered an efficient way to produce more with less you may be able to sell more at lower prices. The key is to ensure that you are profitable, by maximizing profit.  Bauvolumen führt zu geringeren Kosten bzw. höherer Zahlungsbereitschaft.

11. Angebot und Nachfrage besser aufeinander abstimmen

Matching supply and demand can be challenging in many businesses.  It can be feast or famine for some companies, particularly those with high seasonality.  Improving forecasts can be a challenge in some markets. The Bullwhip effect is a phenomenon when Prognosen führen zu Ineffizienzen in der Lieferkette.

Some disruptive companies have sought to address this.  Examples of digital tools that can help companies better manage increasing demand include 99designs.com and Fiverr.  Other examples include call center BPO companies that can rapidly scale up and handle high call volumes on a moment’s notice during a weather emergency.

12. Eliminieren Sie den Mittelsmann

Intermediaries know as the “Middle Man” can be capturing value in your market.  By disintermediating them, you can do the same tasks at a lower cost. Think about the travel agents of the past.  They have largely been replaced by Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) like Expedia and Booking.com. Be cautious though in thinking that digital disruption is always cutting out middle man, who bring some value to the table.  Travel agents still exist, but far fewer of them. Brokers still form a large part of financial services. Real estate agents are often preferred in many countries. Be cautious to take into account the intangible value that some middlemen can provide such as trust, face-to-face interaction and other social dynamics of some professions.

13. Ändern Sie das Wertversprechen

You can become more scalable by changing your value proposition. You can change how business is done, and in some cases, simplify it.  Examples include changing processes, the payments, the exchange of value, the redistribution of risk, the management of operations, etc.

Uber was able to increase scale.  Its technology at the time was actually not a major breakthrough, using existing geopositioning technology, existing mobile payment technology, and customers’ own smartphones. But, Uber transformed the customer value proposition. It combined mobile payments, customer reviews, a real-time marketplace between buyers and sellers, existing GPS technology already available on mobile phones, and leveraged a transformative rise of the gig economy and independent contractor model.

By building scale, Uber was able to match supply and demand to allow customers to get a ride at any time for a price. It disrupted the taxi model and provided customer value improvements.  These value proposition improvements included a better ride, reduced anxiety for tipping, reduced need for cash in your wallet, safety, and a better overall experience.

14. Bauen Sie Partnerschaften mit Influencern auf

With smartphone technology and social media, the world has seen an uptick in the rise of influencers.  Using their social influence can propel your brand above others and create scale. One influencer can efficiently share your brand with thousands and millions of people. With influencers, you can create “Positive Feedback Loops” and “Network Effects,” where success breeds success.  In other words, more brand awareness from influencers boosts demand of your product, which boosts sales volume, which can lower costs, attracting even more demand. Creating “Win-Win” partnerships with suppliers and other companies can also create these positive feedback loops in an ecosystem.  Affiliate marketing can also help boost your scalability.

15. Bauen Sie ein Ökosystem und einen ergänzenden Markt auf

You can boost scale by creating an ecosystem.  Produce more products around your core product.  Or you can have an open source technology and encourage other developers to work with your technology.  Apple and Google each have built an enviable ecosystem with new products, devices, hardware, software and cloud-based services. Complements are products whose demand increases demand for your product.  For example, hot Barbecue sauce is a complement to chicken.

You can also become scalable is by boosting your complements, or having complements emphasize you.  An example is the “Intel Inside” sticker on many computers sold today. Computer manufacturers allowed Intel to include the “Intel Inside” sticker on all computers.  By building the complement market, the computer companies developed branding advantages.

16. Starten Sie eine „Blue Ocean“-Strategie

Blue Ocean Strategy focuses on bringing something new to the market.  It’s often about game-changing disruptions that change the value proposition.  Blue Ocean strategy focuses on boosting Willingness to Pay (Price) and reducing costs.  It’s called Blue Ocean, as opposed to Red Ocean, where competition is fierce and there is figuratively blood in the water.  

These strategies include transformative innovations.  Examples include changing the way people travel, such as Autonomous Vehicles that transport you to work.  Or, Apple creating iTunes and changing the way an entire generation of consumers listen to music. To achieve Blue Ocean, you can Senken Sie Kosten und Preise, begeistern Sie Ihre Kunden und verändern Sie die Art und Weise, wie Kunden Ihr Produkt konsumieren. 

You can think about Eliminating, Reducing, Raising, and Creating features that delight your customers.  You can change the game and eliminate the tradeoffs that conventional wisdom has taught.

Über Scalable Business Market Research

Market Research identifies your opportunities and challenges so that you can identify ways to become more scalable.  Research can identify ways to lower costs and boost your customers’ Willingness to Pay.

• Qualitative Forschung: Identifies deep customer insights into what they value, what they need, and how they behave
• Quantitative Forschung: Identifiziert ideale Preispunkte für Kunden
• Strategieforschung: Identifies competitor insights, market opportunities, and Business Model Innovations
• Agile Marktforschung: Testet Anzeigen, Websites und Produkte durch Agile Sprints für eine schnelle Produktentwicklung.
• Nicht-Kundenforschung: Identifies why customers will not buy from you, new product opportunities, and new segments of customers

Erreichen Exponentielles Wachstum requires insight, analysis, and Arbeiten schlau.  Kontaktieren Sie uns, damit wir Sie bei Ihren Anforderungen hinsichtlich Skalierbarkeit und Geschäftswachstum unterstützen können.