THE BIG G-prioritising growth has become hard for modern businesses.
According to The Independent a survey of British business leaders found that two thirds of them believed that Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ inaugural budget will make Britain a less attractive country for investors.
The decision to increase business taxes to fund public sector spending may not have been unexpected but it has certainly increased the stress levels of employers at a time when the latest GDP growth figures have come in lower than expected (0.1%) and inflation rates have crept back up (again unexpected) to 2.3%
So how do businesses achieve the Big G..sustainable and meaningful growth…in these challenging times?
As we all know, in national economic terms, Growth is still very much defined by Gross Domestic Product (GDP) whereas modern businesses are increasing looking at much wider definitions of growth that go beyond the traditional revenue and Ebitda (profit) measures for so long established in Industry.
Post covid, we have seen an acceleration of inward-facing softer growth measures for businesses that focus on consumer or customer engagement ,sustainability performance and most significantly people-this all makes sense as if you ask most CEOs what their biggest challenge is they will tell you that its still the attraction and retention of quality staff .
There is no doubt that adopting new working practices to ensure teams flourish and perform makes good business sense but interestingly there is increasing evidence suggesting that many 2 income households are now reliant on home working to balance their domestic budgets-mitigate childcare and travel costs etc. Research from hrnews.co.uk cited that 41% of respondents would have to leave a job if their home working was removed; all of which shows that commercial and economic realities are still very much at the heart of the relationship between businesses and their people. As businesses continue to prioritise and amplify these softer (or perhaps I should say, less traditional)growth metrics-there is a real risk that companies lose their focus on sales growth and cash generation .It is not an either or situation but one of balancing priorities-sales and profit growth generate cash to fund longer term less traditional growth metrics.
If you have ever been fortunate enough to have worked in a thriving business seeing double digit profit growth you will know that nothing beats the feeling of shared success –assuming teams are rewarded and genuinely do share in the success-nothing beats top and bottom line growth as a team motivator.