How to scale?
Hello readers, Hope you had read my previous two articles on WWH of scaling which was about When & What to scale. Third and very decisive module of this series is How to scale the business.
I had ease out the Scaling process so that all level of startups or businesses can adopt it. This process comprises of below steps -
1. 1. Promotion strategy building with breaking the ICE
Identifying medium
Campaign designing
Execution
2. 2. Process creation
3. 3. Ts of Implementation
Team
Technology
Tieups
1. The ICE plan is elaborated below -
Identifying medium
Right way of marketing in particular region is to select the right medium of marketing. For example - If you are promoting in tier 3 or rural regions than right way can be traditional media like news papers, hoardings, posters, wall colour, sampling, stalls.
While for metro and tier 1 cities best way is digital media, viral marketing, branding in malls, event sponsorships. Targeting will further depend on type of product and specific target group (TG).
Campaign designing
Advertisement or promotion material to be designed based on demographic and geographic data mining and analysis. If it’s a product for family than an emotional touch in promotion material or punch lines will attract consumer attention like – LIC, HDFC, Policy bazaar are doing these days.
If your TG is youth then promotion should be trendy, loud, bright, joyful like Pepsi, 5-star, White Hat Jr.
Execution - This is action stage of your plans. It has to be perfect else planning will go useless. Step by step execution of marketing and promotion plan with acute deadlines, monitoring, control is elementary.
In any stage it seems to be failing then re-planning and re-execution to be done else it will burn the cash with no positive impact.
2. Process creation
All businesses from vegetable vender to Amazon, Paytm, Facebook like unicorns have set standard operating processes [ SOPs] for business. A manpower may come and go but process stays forever and every person in organization has to follow the same processes for uninterrupted operational flow.
If you are in food business than standard recipes to be frozen out, if you are in tech oriented business than your need to have work flow designs for every functions like operations, support team, with defined turnaround time for every step [TAT].
Whenever new employee joins, HR or Team head must provide SOPs and explain the process him for quick involvement in system.
3. 3 Ts of implementation -
Team
“Entrepreneur is foundation and Team is pillar of business.” Once your business is on auto pilot and self sustaining and you had decided to scale, you need to on-board strong leaders who can head your operations and growth.
If you are going in other city, endeavor to hire maximum resources locally as they understand domestic market intensely and they have network of people there to garner business or support.
Top leading positions are likes of COO, CMO, CTO or CxOs…. Once hiring is d
one half way is accomplished. Management concept of right person, at right place at right time applies here. Google appointed Mr. Sunder Pichai as CEO when it felt to launch new product and increase monetization.
Technology
Next important aspect is technology. Technology can be used for managing Database, CRM, Lead funnel, customer support, understanding consumer behavior. If your customer touch point is through technology like- App or web then your front end interface [UI] must be robust and attractive and if your customer is connecting you through offline centers then your backend technology needs to be strong.
You can understand the importance of technology from the case of Askme.com. Primary reason for failure was that its platform [ product & technology] was not great and couldn’t beat easy use platforms like justdial or indiamart. Further, to fight against competition and get traction, it started over spending on branding and due to that it faced lack of funds to survive.
Further, there are low cost ready tech tools available to start with like ZOHO CRM, Shopify, Marg ERP, BI tools, GSuite, AWS startup package. At the end you should have your own proprietary technology to give best user experience and monetize the product.
Tieups
Another model for scaling into new markets can be Strategic alliance with dealers, local players, franchisee, channel partners. In such type of models your capex is saved and local players understand the market well.
It also helps you to curtail team costs and generate recurring incomes. This can be structured on cross selling, up selling models or revenue share basis.
Hope you will remember ICE plan with topping of 3Ts to enjoy the thunder of scaling. Pls drop your views and queries in comments section.
All the best for future endeavor in business with the concept of WWH of scaling.
Best Regards,
Amit Pamnani
Ex-VC , Mentor
Indore, India
