Creating value in your lifestyle company

All business owners want to be successful, but their interpretation of success varies widely. For many success is defined as providing the shareholders with a good salary and reasonable financial security.

Some business owners are more ambitious. They want to create real value in their businesses. Perhaps they see a clear competitive advantage that can be exploited in their current market or a new one. Perhaps they have a new product, technology or service to roll out.

Developing a valuable company from a lifestyle business is an admirable goal, but the reality can be tough. Making the change successfully requires most, if not all, of the following:

  • A real market need and a clear understanding of that need
  • A robust vision of how you can fill that need and the capability to realise the vision yourself rather than creating opportunities for competitors
  • The right people at board, management and operations level and the structure that gives them the time to focus on the chosen growth path in addition to routine activities.
  • A scalable marketing and sales function that really does know how to beat effective competition
  • A scalable delivery capability that can grow in size whilst maintaining service and quality levels
  • Effective and timely financial and operational reporting systems and processes
  • Experience of a wide range of marketing techniques and routes to market, either directly or through alliance partners
  • The right funding at the right time to grow the business, organically or through acquisition
  • Accessing experienced and relevant external help at the appropriate times

And by no means least: The commitment and drive of the business owners to succeed.

To help you assess your readiness for growth, Azure Partners provide a review of the issues and threats you need to address to develop your lifestyle business into a business with real value in it. The reviews last about 90 minutes and culminate in the completion of a 20 point growth readiness diagnostic and the development of a high level action plan to build value in your business.

For more details contact Paul Chapman on 0207 100 1233 or paul.chapman@azurepartners.co.uk