Planning for Growth: Key Considerations, Ansoff Matrix, Funding Sources

Planning for growth

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
1.1 Analysis of key considerations for growth opportunities......................................................1
1.2 Evaluation of growth opportunities using Ansoff Matrix......................................................4
1.3 Critical evaluation of potential sources of funding for an SME............................................5
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................8
2.1 Business plan.........................................................................................................................8
TASK 3..........................................................................................................................................12
3.1 Critical evaluation of different exit and succession options for an SME owner.................12
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................13
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................14

INTRODUCTION
Planning for growth is an important managerial function that involves identification of
business growth opportunities based on external environment analysis for maximisation of
revenue and profits and making investment into resources for leveraging the growth
opportunities (Kumar, 2016). Marshfield Bakery Limited is a medium-sized business
organisation which was founded in the year 2005 and the company has its registered office in
Chippenham, Gloucestershire, United Kingdom. The company provides a wide range of bakery
products that are home-manufactured with promising quality such as cookies, handmade cakes,
biscuits, snack bars and a range of other seasonal products. In the following report, an attempt is
made to determine the key considerations for an SME for evaluation of growth opportunities
using analytical frameworks such as Ansoff Matrix. The report also evaluates various sources of
finance and exit options available for SMEs. The report also presents a business plan for the
management of Marshfield Bakery for future growth and business development.
TASK 1
1.1 Analysis of key considerations for growth opportunities.
Growth opportunity can be termed as an area or direction of strategic future growth where
an investment is made by a business organisation in the anticipation of earning better revenue
and profits in future (Bi, Davison and Smyrnios, 2017). In the context of a SME business
organisation, identification and evaluation of growth opportunities is a very crucial function of
the management primarily because of the extent of competition faced by these organisations
from large corporations. Evaluation of growth opportunities to build and offer a diversified range
of products or services ensures and enhances the competitive position of a SME in its industry
and ensures that the business organisation doesn’t lose its market favourability and
supportiveness in the transit process. The following considerations should necessarily be made
by the management of an SME before expanding their business organisation:
Resources: Essentially, every business organisation consists of a combination of financial,
physical, human and other resources that are used to deliver goods and services to the potential
customers. Thus, expansion and growth opportunities for a SME also requires a substantial deal
of investment into acquisition of other resources along with existing resources and hence, a
business manager of SME should consider the resource requirements before expansion and
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development. Necessity of considering resources increases exponentially in case of SMEs due to
the limited investment and access to funds (Love and Roper, 2015).
Core competencies: Core competencies can be termed as the unique and distinct element
of an organisation that enables it to offer a high quality of exceptional service to the customers. It
acts as the unique selling proposition for an organisation. The management of SMEs needs to
consider and evaluate the core competency of the organisation to leverage it as a strength in the
future growth and expansion plans or strategies of the organisation (Weber, Geneste and
Connell, 2015).
Capabilities: It denotes the ability, skill and knowledge of a business organisation to use
the resources for offering goods and services that meet or exceeds the expectations of customer.
The management of SMEs needs to consider the capability of the organisation to determine
whether the access to resources can be leveraged by the organisation to establish a platform for
future growth and increase in the revenues. For example, prior to making any investment in
technology for business growth and development, the management of SMEs need to develop the
technical skills and knowledge of the employees.
PESTLE Analysis for Growth Opportunities:
It is tool of strategic change management that is applied by business managers to identify
and determine the impact of external environment and explore the key trends and changes in the
external environment of an organisation (Marmol and Feys, 2015). It can be used to determine
the growth opportunities for SMEs in the following manner:
Political factors:
It refers to the government policies or the extent of government intervention in a business
territory. Political factors can be considered to identify any growth opportunity by business
managers of SME.
Brexit and local expansion: Brexit have resulted into an opportunity for local business
owners and other SMEs to increase their sales and revenue by offering the existing range of
products in other markets which were earlier dominated by other European companies (Brown,
Liñares-Zegarra and Wilson, 2019).
Economic factors:
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