When Should Mid-market Businesses Consider Scaling Up Operations?

Identifying the best time to scale at different points along a business’s trajectory can be difficult, especially for mid-market players. For start-ups, identifying scaling opportunities tends to be comparatively easy – the moment the business begins making consistent profits or is unable to keep up with customer demand, it generally means it’s time to expand operations.

By contrast, mid-market companies are already well-established in their industries, with solid revenues, established and functioning employees and departments, and a generally solid customer base. It’s when businesses reach this plateau that one of three things can start to happen. One: some businesses may manage to stay operational within the status quo for years. But it’s far more likely that either these businesses begin to – two: deteriorate as competition grows, or three: eventually move on to become fully-fledged large-scale enterprises.

Some key identifiers that a mid-market business might be ready to move to the next level include:

• New market avenues have been identified
• Current customers’ needs and buying habits are shifting
• All necessary processes, from payments to HR, have been fully automated where required
• Onboarding processes have been streamlined
• Employees are not only loyal but growing in responsibility and desirous of new challenges

Once mid-market business owners begin seeing these and other growth points occurring in their enterprises, a wise next step would be to employ the services of a consultant with prior established knowledge in implementing the framework of Scaling Up in NZ to advise on the best course of action. To make the most of moving to large-scale operations, mid-market companies would do well to make use of the help and expertise of someone who can confirm whether or not their business is, in fact, ready to scale; prepare all aspects of their operations before initiating the scaling process; and ultimately transition to large-scale functioning.

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