Good resources on growing a small international business?
January 17, 2016 5:04 PM Subscribe
An acquaintance is at wits end running a successful small international business. He has a small staff warehousing and shipping retail and wholesale product from overseas. He's the CEO, salesman, accountant, web content manager, etc.. The problems of the day are inventory management, accounting, and assessing tax impacts of various corporate structures. Obviously, many small businesses have gone through this phase and there must be some specific advice on what employee one needs next and which consultants actually help, for example. Are there forums or other resources for people making this sort of business transition?
Hi Global Enterprise Executive and Co Owner of a very successful international side business.
These are fundamentally growth problems. And more to the point, determining which direction the business wants to head.
Before getting to shopping in consultants (last step if needed) what he needs to do is really assess the business and its functions. It is surprising how many great successful people like your buddy with the skills to do a lot of jobs tend to internalise and stop looking at overall state of their business. He definitely isn't alone.
To get a handle of things, the single most important part is an honest self assessment of whether he is a leader capable of executing a clear strategy that benefits the company, employees and assets. For many, this is really a tough job. Growing a business and being the force behind it while still working all the different aspects is a sure fire way to either 1) stay as you are or 2) fall behind and eventually drift away.
From personal and professional experience my approach would be:
1. Self Assessment
2. Build a clear picture of what the company does. And by this I mean the roles and processes that support the business. You mention Salesman, Account, WebDev etc. All of these functions have processes that should be clearly defined. If I were him it would definitely mean working with his small staff to really go through everything and document.
3. Once you have a handle on how the company operates today, the next most important thing is to build a cohesive short term and long term strategy that has measurable goals. For short term, it could be so simple as to say one goal is no more webdev work for me and then map a timeline and steps to resolve. Others can be much more challenging and involve the existing staff.
4. Determine cash flow and investment volumes. With a short and long term strategy in place, it becomes easy to map cash flow and investment to the strategic plan. If he wants to be a CEO and farm out webdev and sales, what is it going to cost? What % of liquidity and or cash flow should be diverted to get the maximum bang for the buck. Accountancy is probably the easiest to outsource and generate a massive time savings benefit against cost, especially when operating internationally. Same with webdev etc. Sales is a bit more tricky as someone coming in will need to have the experience to build a sales machine from the ground up.
4. With a strategy in place,map of how the company operates and analysis of investment, now it is possible to refine and build a list of options. Additionally you can evaluate further if your strategy is feasible and really dig down and priortise what really is important.
5. Execution. Here I would say it might be valuable to hire in a couple of consultants short term to validate your existing work and strategy. Outside insight is always extremely valuable but relying on others to complete everything for you is very expensive and doesn't give the benefit of all the knowledge built to get the conclusions.
Hope this helps. It is extremely basic, but the ideas behind are very solid and form a very solid basis for determining how to successfully make changes and grow at the same time.
posted by Funmonkey1 at 7:32 AM on January 18, 2016
These are fundamentally growth problems. And more to the point, determining which direction the business wants to head.
Before getting to shopping in consultants (last step if needed) what he needs to do is really assess the business and its functions. It is surprising how many great successful people like your buddy with the skills to do a lot of jobs tend to internalise and stop looking at overall state of their business. He definitely isn't alone.
To get a handle of things, the single most important part is an honest self assessment of whether he is a leader capable of executing a clear strategy that benefits the company, employees and assets. For many, this is really a tough job. Growing a business and being the force behind it while still working all the different aspects is a sure fire way to either 1) stay as you are or 2) fall behind and eventually drift away.
From personal and professional experience my approach would be:
1. Self Assessment
2. Build a clear picture of what the company does. And by this I mean the roles and processes that support the business. You mention Salesman, Account, WebDev etc. All of these functions have processes that should be clearly defined. If I were him it would definitely mean working with his small staff to really go through everything and document.
3. Once you have a handle on how the company operates today, the next most important thing is to build a cohesive short term and long term strategy that has measurable goals. For short term, it could be so simple as to say one goal is no more webdev work for me and then map a timeline and steps to resolve. Others can be much more challenging and involve the existing staff.
4. Determine cash flow and investment volumes. With a short and long term strategy in place, it becomes easy to map cash flow and investment to the strategic plan. If he wants to be a CEO and farm out webdev and sales, what is it going to cost? What % of liquidity and or cash flow should be diverted to get the maximum bang for the buck. Accountancy is probably the easiest to outsource and generate a massive time savings benefit against cost, especially when operating internationally. Same with webdev etc. Sales is a bit more tricky as someone coming in will need to have the experience to build a sales machine from the ground up.
4. With a strategy in place,map of how the company operates and analysis of investment, now it is possible to refine and build a list of options. Additionally you can evaluate further if your strategy is feasible and really dig down and priortise what really is important.
5. Execution. Here I would say it might be valuable to hire in a couple of consultants short term to validate your existing work and strategy. Outside insight is always extremely valuable but relying on others to complete everything for you is very expensive and doesn't give the benefit of all the knowledge built to get the conclusions.
Hope this helps. It is extremely basic, but the ideas behind are very solid and form a very solid basis for determining how to successfully make changes and grow at the same time.
posted by Funmonkey1 at 7:32 AM on January 18, 2016
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1.) If they can delegate tasks in their daily schedule.
2.) Who to delegate these to, and possibly hire.
When expanding the person that gets the company off the ground is not necessarily who will take it to 10- 20- 50- people. There is also the option of looking for a buyer if they want to get out at this point.
They might consider looking for someone able to juggle multiple roles like themselves. An accountant who wants to sell, or a sales person who does web work and accounting. Someone who is willing to be flexible and contribute to (and rewarded with) growth.
posted by nickggully at 7:35 PM on January 17, 2016