For SME companies in Singapore, business expansion is often one of the key goals to achieve revenue growth and ultimately, business growth to scale your company to greater heights. Whether your goal is to sell your business or become a household name locally or even globally, business expansion will aid in your dream.
To aid in your business expansion plans, organisations such as the Singapore Business Federation (SBF) and Singapore Manufacturing Federation (SMF), as well as the many SME centers islandwide, provide Singapore entrepreneurs with assistance across various problem areas. The Singapore Malay Chamber of Commerce and the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce also provide networks and assistance for their respective business communities.
Read on for some innovative ideas on how to promote business growth through expansion and how to finance them, especially for small businesses.
What Is Business Expansion?
Entrepreneurs typically look to business expansion when their companies are at their peak or when they look to promote revenue growth. However, with every business decision comes risk, especially for business expansion where a poorly managed one can cause the entire business to collapse and fail.
Hence, it can be crucial to develop a clear business expansion plan that guides the direction of your processes and operations, such as business marketing. This plan can also help in overcoming common business expansion challenges like determining what is the best financing option for business expansion.
To guide your business growth strategies, here are 5 business expansion examples that entrepreneurs might look into to kickstart your journey to increased revenue growth.
1. Produce New Products And Services
While having a signature product or service can promote brand awareness, it can be risky to depend solely on it. Business owners should look to create fresh and innovative ideas regularly to keep up with market trends and maintain a competitive edge over their competitors.
Performing thorough market research is crucial to the success of this strategy as it allows entrepreneurs to determine the viability of new business ideas before investing in these products. One of the best ways to do this is through conducting surveys on existing or potential consumers to understand their demands.
By innovating new products or services, your consumer base may increase while your existing consumers may be encouraged to spend more. With this, your business can improve its revenue growth. To facilitate your R&D efforts for business expansion, consider applying for Poss Capital business loans. Bank loans such as the DBS working capital loan often involve a stringent assessment process, but at Poss, we offer quick and fuss-free working capital loans with no early repayment penalties.
Comparing business loan options for business expansion, private lenders like us certainly give small businesses the financial ability to take advantage of new opportunities sooner. Have your supply chain financing needs provided for by Payd!
2. Enter New Geographical Markets
Another method of market expansion is to venture into new geographical markets. Business owners may sometimes find existing markets to have become saturated with one product, causing customer growth to stagnate. By opening new branches in different areas, or opening up sales to overseas consumers, your consumer base may potentially increase significantly which could then lead to an increase in revenue growth.
The Singapore government has provided entrepreneurs with assistance in internationalising their businesses. One example is the China-Singapore Free Trade Agreement, which eliminates tariffs on 95% of goods exported from Singapore to China, amongst other benefits. Closer to home, the ASEAN free trade agreement also aims to reduce tariffs and reduce barriers to entry into other Southeast Asian markets.
However, a market expansion strategy often takes up significant amounts of time, resources, and capital. Hence, market research is also crucial here to ensure that your business will have a positive return on investment. This is where Singapore entrepreneurs can tap into SBF and SMF’s experience in internationalisation and their connections to overseas partners to help achieve their market expansion goals.
As SME companies in Singapore become increasingly successful in venturing into new markets, Singapore’s overall economy will also prosper and invite more foreign investments into local small businesses. This in turn creates more opportunities for entrepreneurs to expand their business further.
3. Target New Customer Groups
Most businesses tend to focus their sales and marketing efforts on a specific demographic that may best resonate with their brand image. These include age, gender, interests or values. This can be highly impactful for new small businesses as focusing on one group allows the limited resources to be narrowly scoped for greater productivity. However, as your business grows and the hunger for greater revenue growth increases, it may be helpful to target new consumer groups to expand your consumer base.
One way of successfully targeting new consumers can be through effective business marketing techniques and the use of suitable platforms. Businesses should tailor their marketing campaigns to ensure they resonate with their target audience and create brand awareness. If done right, entrepreneurs may start to see increased brand awareness and business growth.
4. Implement New Sales Strategies
With the power of digitalisation, sales options, and business models can go beyond traditional brick-and-mortar stores. Consumers now flock to online shopping platforms such as Shopee and Lazada, attracted by the convenience that comes with it. It can be hard to compete with the accessibility and cheap prices that these platforms provide.
Thus, business owners ought to take advantage of online opportunities to reinvent themselves, by opening online stores and using digital marketing and search engine optimisation techniques to reach a wider audience. Adopting these sales strategies can be highly beneficial for business growth and should be looked into.
5. Boost Your Marketing Strategy For Business Expansion
As mentioned above, a vital part of creating brand awareness and maintaining a loyal customer base is through effective business marketing. Hence, businesses should constantly review and improve their marketing strategies to increase consumer confidence in their products and services.
One way to boost your marketing efforts is to analyse how your competitors or other established brands reach out to their consumers. From there, your business can look at the flaws in your current campaigns and adopt the best practices instead. For more tips on business marketing, check out our previous articles and learn more about the benefits of digital marketing and some tips on festive marketing.
What Is Business Financing?
These strategies serve as good guidelines for successful project management or business expansion. While the necessary market research, R&D, and strategic planning are all essential, one common factor behind these processes is the costs required to drive them.
Business expansion will invite financial burdens onto entrepreneurs as their businesses look to scale to greater heights. Hence, if your business does not have sufficient working capital, financing solutions can be looked at to ease your financial concerns.
Don’t let insufficient funds or the lack of access to alternative financing solutions stand in the way of your business goals. With simple borrowing requirements and transparent fees, Poss is here to help you achieve your dreams of expansion. Contact us and ease your financial worries with us today!
