How MSMEs Can Dream Big: A Roadmap To ₹1000 Crores Turnover
No MSME intends to remain one forever. Through steady growth and a vice-like grip on expenses and resource consumption, every small or medium-sized business eventually plans to surge past certain growth and diversification milestones. One such major milestone is the target of generating revenues to the tune of a thousand crores every year. There are several pieces that must fall into place for any MSME to eventually break into the ₹1000 crore club — an exclusive zone that nonetheless has no shortage of companies already. Before delving into the aspects that are integral to a ₹1000 crore company, one needs to detect a pattern. In other words, companies must know about specific commonalities that all ₹1000 crore companies share.
Some common traits of ₹1000 crore turnover companies
In basic terms, an overriding reliance on technology. While that would be an oversimplification of sorts when one lists down the commonalities of all ₹1000 crore companies, technology and automation are truly the drivers of growth and diversification in organizations of all sizes and valuations today. Therefore, there is always an undercurrent of technology within all the commonalities between all the companies that touch the mythical ₹1000 crore turnover targets every year.
A business model based on technology
SMBs that employ automation software, data-driven tools, and other advanced digital tech are likelier to grow and scale as compared to other companies of the same ilk, which may end up being stagnant and show declining numbers over the long term. This opinion is shared by business heads in two-thirds of SMBs. Such businesses generally think that technology is the key to meeting business goals. Beliefs such as these are not unfounded, since the companies that use digital tools such as CRM are about 139% more likely to be growing and not declining.
What is the reason for this affinity towards technology? For one, businesses, whether they are giants of the industry or ambitious SMBs, chase efficiency of time and resource usage, and technology helps them achieve those dual objectives without hassles.
In other words, SMBs can facilitate scaling through technologies such as cloud computing, CRM, and others.
Innovative and affordable solutions
In industry speak, disruption refers to the positive game-changing effect certain innovations bring to the table after they are implemented in organizations. In that sense, technology and automation are truly disruptive for businesses as they can be used to speed up supply chain processes, streamline operations, remove the element of human error from the supply chain, and, in totality, reduce the production costs of goods. This, in turn, enables businesses to price their offerings more competitively, making their end products more affordable for the masses.
Consumer data-driven functions
A large percentage of ₹1000 crore companies may be B2C companies, with their clients being end consumers. Therefore, customer service and CRM, in general, are high priorities for companies. To optimize their customer experiences, such companies use customer data and technologies such as CDP, CRM, and DMP to leverage this data, enrich it, and activate it to the fullest.
These technologies are used to create dynamic customer profiles and understand their needs and requirements based on data taken from various digital sources — such as social media pages, searches made on eCommerce websites, online behavior, and others.
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Ways in which businesses can join the ₹1000 crore club
As one can expect, there isn’t a set pathway for businesses to join this exclusive but fast-growing club of companies. Successful businesses generally create their own path. At the same time, there are certain steps or phases that most ₹1000 crore companies may go through. As a result, this can be considered a roadmap of sorts for reaching the hallowed club:
Analytic stage
In this phase, businesses perform audience and competitor analysis, evaluating buyer personas, and identifying ideal communication channels for marketing, creating financing plans, and creating the mission, short-term goals, long-term goals, and vision of what will be a ₹1000 crore organization in the future.
Funding stage
In this stage, a newly formed start-up will need to raise finances to boost its growth and, eventually, break even. This phase of a start-up’s journey is known as the seed stage and the finance is known as seed finance. As stated earlier, technology plays a key role in the growth of ₹1000 crore companies. Digitized supply chain financing offers a continuous stream of working capital for the suppliers of a company so that the company's production and other supply chain operations can carry on unabated. Companies can receive supply chain financing from B2B financing solutions providers. This financing option helps companies build long-term relationships with their vendors or suppliers and may even receive materials at discounted rates from them.
Market entry stage
After the seed stage, the given business sets up operations, establishes teams and develops prototype products for testing in the market. In this phase, businesses create teams that kick-start the development lifecycle, create a minimal viable product before entering the market.
Growth and expansion stage
This is the phase in which ₹1000 crore companies start pulling away from the crowd in terms of actual revenue growth and progress. The initial growth phase marks the time when the business creates a successful niche for itself within the market. After that, the business takes sound strategic decisions, employs successful marketing campaigns, and refines their products or services over time to get to the expansion stage. The expansion stage is truly the time when companies go international and set up operations and headquarters across different time zones. In this stage, the business isn't a risky investment anymore and begins attracting financers and investors such as private equity firms, investment banks, hedge funds, and others.
As stated earlier, this roadmap is filled with several roadblocks and complications. Companies that enter the ₹1000 crore club do so on the basis of sound decision-making, assured continuity planning and execution, and a large amount of good fortune to make it there.
Mistakes aspiring ₹1000 crore businesses must avoid
Speaking of robust decision-making, there are several ways in which a startup’s ₹1000 crore journey can be derailed even before the organization gets going. Some of the mistakes that businesses may make when they are at a startup stage are as follows:
Committing more than delivering
Start-ups or businesses looking to grow quickly, secure finances, or lure new customers may promise the moon and the stars to their stakeholders without any foundation or basis to back such claims up. There have been several examples of businesses committing much, much more than delivering to their stakeholders. Such stories generally end in ignominy for the businesses as well as their founders and owners.
Essentially, startup companies must be realistic and practical when they pitch themselves in front of prospective investors. Breaking into the ₹1000 crore club is a long and arduous journey, and businesses only make it tougher for themselves when they attempt to rush through the process.
Being averse to agility
Entrepreneurs may approach their startup in very rigid ways, such as following pre-defined strategies with a few end-goals in mind. However, the most vital aspect of successful businesses is their adaptability, nimbleness, and agility to face unpredictable situations. Essentially, business heads need to keep an open mind and stay agile to adapt and grow even in adverse circumstances such as recessions and demand drought.
Prioritizing ideas over execution
Companies looking to rake in revenues worth a thousand crores annually need to have more than just one promising seed idea before they commence their journey to the ₹1000 crore club. Most good ideas are generally already taken or in use. So, most startups generally need to fall back on plan B, C, or D when they inevitably find that their original ideas aren’t original (or effective) enough. Therefore, businesses need to focus on how they position or execute their strategies to maximize the effectiveness of their innovations or ideas.
There are several ways in which technology helps businesses breach the ₹1000 crore barrier, such as digital vendor management to monitor and coordinate all vendor activity from one digital dashboard, and procurement automation which enables businesses to track the provenance and current status of incoming material from suppliers.
Bizongo offers several financing and technical solutions to help your business grow and diversify. Our services and technical expertise are an ideal match for all kinds of companies looking to climb the revenue ladder and attain ₹1000 crore turnovers year on year and, eventually, unicorn status.
You can contact us to know more about our B2B solutions for your business.
