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The start-up ecosystem in India has been gathering both pace and clout for some time now. The COVID-19 pandemic has only acted as a catalyst for this trend. According to statistics from the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, over 77,000 start-ups had been set up in India by the end of August 2022. While this is a heartening piece of news on the economic and employment fronts, the lack of sustainability of many of these start-ups is a matter of concern. As a business owner or a company leader, taking long-term growth and development into consideration is key to the survival and success of your business.

A long-term business leader is essentially a strategist and a visionary who looks at sustainable growth as the goal. This needs to be factored into the business model, and long-term business development strategies may also require periodic re-evaluation. As market demands, external forces, and technologies evolve, your path towards reaching out to customers and clients and addressing their needs may require to be appraised from time to time. You can learn from the experiences and examples of some famous visionary leaders and entrepreneurs and also be inspired by industry peers and mentors. Let us take a look at some of the top ways to plan for long-term growth.

  1. The Growth Vision – Long-term success is often seeded into the vision of the entrepreneur or business leader. Let us take the case of start-ups. Having come up with a great idea and finding the funding to back it up may not be enough. The entrepreneur needs to build scalability into the business model. This holds true for established businesses as well. Sanjiv Bajaj, the Chairman and Managing Director of Bajaj Finserv and President of CII (2022-23), is a great example of a famous visionary leader. When he took over the financial services vertical of the Bajaj Group, complacency and a tech-unfriendly attitude were ailing the financial services market. Sanjiv Bajaj knew that it would be difficult to grow unless the organisation underwent a complete innovation and technology-powered makeover. So he initiated a complete digital transformation of the business, resulting in Bajaj Finserv becoming one of the largest NBFCs in India, with a record turnover of ₹ 36,692 crores in the first half of 2022-23.
  1. People-centric Approach – It is important for any business leader to understand one simple fact – that businesses are run by people. Your product, services, tech features, and automation processes may be stellar, but long-term growth shall remain elusive until your employees, staff, and personnel are invested in the organisation’s success. When we speak of people-centric leadership, the best example we can learn from is Ratan Tata, the former chairman of Tata Sons. He often speaks fondly of his time on the floor of the Tata Steel factory, where he started his career operating the blast furnace. His humility and a deep sense of empathy with the workers come from this experience. It is with this as his guiding principle that Ratan Tata managed to take the Tata Group to phenomenal heights and build a conglomerate with a market cap of ₹ 23.6 trillion.
  1. A Culture of Development – Growth, and development can be multi-faceted. At an organisational level, it could mean reaching larger markets, greater brand awareness, and more market share. At a team level, it could mean attracting and retaining better talent, more incentives, and better morale. At an individual level, it could refer to freedom of communication, the ability to ideate and innovate, and more skill training and learning. As a best business leader, it is important that you create an organisational culture that encourages and appreciates growth on all these levels to succeed in the long term. Apart from his emphasis on sharing good business practices, Adi Godrej, the Chairman of the Godrej Group, has always emphasised the skill development of the country’s youth. He facilitated the skill training of hundreds of young men and women, and the Godrej Group absorbed much of this talent pool, making it a stellar organisation in the long run.

Long-term growth is a cherished goal for every business organisation. However, the size of your organisation notwithstanding, it is important to factor in and plan for sustainable growth. This includes developing a leadership model that makes growth and development part of the very fabric of your business enterprise, not merely an accidental incentive.

Conclusion: Long-term sustainability, scalable growth, and development must be part of the very business model for every new start-up or enterprise. Leadership plays a very important role in creating the vision for the future and setting the direction for sustainable growth. As a business leader, you must emphasise individual learning and adopt an innovative approach for the business to grow in the long run. It is important to cherish the employees and team members and appreciate their roles to foster the growth of your organisation. 

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