5. Maturity Stage
After a successful expansion, your business is on top of its industry and has matured. At the final stage of the business lifecycle, your business has a dominating presence in its market. Your business could still be growing but not at the substantial rate as you’ve previously experienced. Your current option is to decide to take a step back towards the expansion stage or to think of a possible exit strategy.
If you decide to expand further, you will need to ask yourself the same questions you did at the expansion stage: Can the business sustain further growth? Are there enough opportunities out there for expansion? Is your business financially stable enough to cover an unsuccessful attempt at expansion? Your challenges will be:
- Increasing Market Competition
- Accounting Management
- Moving into New Markets
- Adding New Products/Services
- Expanding Existing Business
- Exit Strategy
Every stage of the business lifecycle brings new or pre-existing challenges. Solutions that may have worked for one stage may not work in another stage, which is why you should always adjust your business plan and operations accordingly.
For many companies, there will be some sort of resemblance to the stages defined above, and awareness may help you anticipate what is coming next and how you can best prepare yourself and your team to maximize your chance of success. Making the right decisions at each stage is another thing altogether, however, and that will require your usual mix of gut instinct and practical business sense.
Main pic: Unsplash