4 Tips to Increase the Scale of Your Middle Market Organization

It’s not unusual for a mid-sized company to realize that their growth — once robust — has downshifted or has even plateaued. Maintaining steady growth is often a dicey proposition for organizations, no matter their size or their industry.

By fostering a culture of innovation, middle market companies can develop new products and services that drive growth. Below are 4 important points that keep your company thriving and competitive.

Focus on Strategy

When a small company first starts out, they are looking to find their niche. This is understandable and certainly laudable — the result is a growing, small firm. However, the natural tendency is for small organizations to do too much, too soon.

Medium-sized companies need to focus more on strategy: targeting certain market segments and customer bases.

Keep up with your tech!

A survey from the National Center for the Middle Market examined the rate at which middle market companies are moving into the digital age. Although the survey found that 63% of the respondents claimed that digitization is “very or extremely important” to their respective businesses, less than a third viewed their own organizations as leaders in this respect.

Another key finding from the study showed a direct correlation between the size of the company and their push for digitization: the largest companies in the survey (those with annual revenues of between $100 million and $1 billion) placed the highest priority on digitizing their organizations.

Innovation is Key

It is certainly a commendable goal to achieve high levels of innovation — but how does the typical middle market company accomplish this? First, understand that in a majority of instances, innovation happens incrementally.

Having a industry-shaking breakthrough is fantastic, but that doesn’t realistically happen often. Second, collaborate with other similar-sized companies.

This is because large companies typically focus on working with other large companies or start-ups, leaving the medium-sized company out of the equation. Use this omission by the big guys to your firm’s advantage.

Finally, employees at medium-sized companies are usually closer to customers than those at large behemoths; use this close proximity to your customers to garner valuable feedback, which can in turn be used to engender creative and innovative new products and concepts.

Continue to find (and keep) the right people

Solid, quality employees are the lifeblood of any successful company. The old adage that a company is only as good as the employees that work there remains true.

It’s imperative to understand that the future growth of a company is dictated to a large extent by the firm’s ability to recruit, develop, and retain the highest quality employees.

In order to continue to grow, middle market companies must focus on strategy (targeting market segments and customer bases), ensure they are active participants in the digital revolution, foster a culture of innovation, and remember the importance of employing a quality workforce.