6 Tips To Scale Your Business Fast In The Philippines (2021)
Running a business in the Philippines has become much harder after the pandemic. Many are taking risk-averse actions to protect their businesses. A recent study conducted by ADB shows that about 71% of MSMEs in the Philippines were forced to temporarily close due to the COVID-19 outbreak. If running a business in a pandemic-hit market is already a challenge, what more when you want to scale up quickly?
As you plan for the next phase of your business’ development, take note of these 6 tips that will help you grow your business fast.
1. Build Customer Capital
Whether you’re running a local business in the Philippines, a SaaS company, or a new startup, one thing that can always help you grow is positive customer/client reviews. This may sound like common sense for every business out there but many Filipino business owners fail to harness this leverage because they view relationships with their customers as ‘’transactional’’.
At times like these, people are more cautious about where they spend their money. Having satisfied customers signals to potential leads that you have a proven product/service that other people are willing to reavail and recommend. Say Apple for example, why do thousands of people line up in front of their stores whenever a new product is released? It’s because Apple was able to build a good reputation with their products. Satisfied customers are more than likely to recommend and avail of your new products. The more you can leverage your customers to get more sales, the more you can grow your business in the Philippines.
2. Digitalize and Automate In OCG, we believe in the potential of technology to drive growth for the business. We’ve preached this in many blog entries because many Filipino businesses are still stuck in the traditional way of doing their operations.
The thing is if you aim to scale your business during this pandemic and beyond, you must be willing to embrace digitalization and automation. Know that if you’re not, your competitions probably have and they will get ahead of you. So If there’s anything in your business that takes up too much time or manual labor, it’s about time to reevaluate that process.
3. Track Your Numbers
Along with using the right tools for your daily operations, make sure you are on top of your numbers. As Allan Dib says, “What gets measured, gets managed.” Having accurate and reliable data will be useful to understand the benchmarks of your enterprise, to track progress, and to develop new strategies. In OCG, we use Xero to help you get real-time updates with your cash flows and other financial data. Knowing how to use that information is vital to scaling your business fast in the Philippines. Book a free value-filled consultation with us to know what numbers you need to track and how we can help you.
Set Clear Business Direction Say you want to scale your business, have you already figured out what direction you want to take it? Having a clear business direction driven by your mission and vision is a prerequisite to taking your business to the next level. Use the data and insights you’ve gathered from the tools and experience you have. Understand where you are right now and plan where you want to be in the future. This may seem basic but this guide will help you keep focus as you implement changes in your enterprise.
Hire A Finance Partner
Scaling up in the Philippines can be a make or break point for your business. If you scale your startup too fast without having proper finance foundations, you might end up creating disruptive problems in your organization. If you scale too slow on the other hand, you might miss out on opportunities that your competitors get a hold of. Either way, let me ask you this question: If you can hire someone with experience in scaling businesses and can help you increase your valuation and growth, will you? If yes, hiring an outsourced CFO might work for you. Book a free value-filled consultation with us. Make Your Employees Happy
According to Howard Schultz, former CEO of Starbucks: Treating employees benevolently shouldn't be viewed as an added cost that cuts into profits, but as a powerful energizer that can grow the enterprise into something far greater than one leader could envision.
This is the kind of Philosophy that helped Starbucks become the biggest coffee chain in the world. And that makes sense: Happy Employees can lead to higher productivity and performance which leads to happy customers and more sales, meaning more growth for the business. This doesn’t only mean fill their pockets well, although that’s good too. In the Philippines, workplaces usually have a strict hierarchical culture between an executive and normal employees. While that is not necessarily bad, as a startup and SME owner, it’s also important to make your employees understand that you care for their well-being. Having that connection with your employees will motivate them to help you build your business to the top.
Final Take
Scaling your business right now in a pandemic-hit market won’t be a walk in the park. Hopefully, the above tips gave you important notes on what you should do to grow your business faster. If you need help with online accounting, tax compliance, Virtual CFO, and CHRO functions, book a free value-filled consultation with us on our website or send us an email at info@olosconsultinggroup.com