4 Ways to Drive Organic Business Growth
As companies find funding harder to come by, more are turning toward organic growth strategies. Here’s what they look like.
EXPERT OPINION BY PARUL BHANDARI, FOUNDER, SOUTH ASIAN SUCCESS, AND CEO, CUSTOMERXSUCCESS @PARULLAHOTI
Organic growth is a hot topic for businesses in many industries and is especially important for many software and tech companies. As overall funding has decreased in the past years, the time is right to double down on internal growth drivers.
What is organic growth exactly? Organic growth is achieved when a company looks internally to drive revenue, rather than relying on additional financial resources. It is the essence of the cliche phrase “Do more with less,” but I recommend you think of it as “Do more with what you have.”
The four tips below can help your teams be more efficient and drive more organic growth as a result.
1. Improve productivity.
Creating time is one way to drive efficiency, as well as improve internal allocation. Artificial intelligence tools have been touted as a driver of productivity gains across many markets and will continue to evolve. Using the tools you’ve already invested in to reduce effort on key activities can help reduce time to value. An example of this is using tools to help draft emails or memos faster, or reading the AI summaries in your meeting notetaker.
2. Offer training.
Providing opportunities to learn and grow can be a way to achieve more breadth with your existing employees. A few years ago, I was asked to keep external resource costs down, and yet needed to take on considerable changes in complex customer relationship management. I tapped a member of my team who was looking to learn more, who then trained on the customer relationship management tool as a side project, and was able to take on minor improvements at a fraction of our costs. This works only if you and the employee have interest and capacity and can actually commit to the learning and growth.
3. Become a customer-led company.
Shifting from product-led to customer-led project growth can be scary for some founders and teams, especially when they build companies around products. But when funding is tight, shifting your lens to customer-focused roadmaps can reduce customer churn because you build what existing customers want and need. It can also lead to expansion opportunities if you build what they need and they add value to your product and feature set. Remember, vocal customers are engaged customers, and building a roadmap around engaged customers can lead to expansion and revenue growth much faster than new lines of business.
4. Use what you buy.
The biggest asset to you and your finance team is to use the tools and equipment you buy. Sounds simple, but underutilizing resources can lead to reduced value and lost efficiencies, and this is very common among many companies. The more you use your tools, the better you understand if they are needed and providing value, and where you can trim to stay on or under your budgets. Use adoption metrics, training, and user feedback to understand the use cases, and drop what does not serve you.
Getting funding is on so many founders’ minds, and yet has proven somewhat elusive for many businesses in the past years. Finding ways to retain and grow revenue, save a few underutilized dollars, and get more from your team can pay back in big ways, and keep your company growing from the inside out.
Photo: Getty Images.
