Via EDC:

There’s nothing more satisfying for an entrepreneur to build a business from start-up to small-medium enterprise (SME) and successfully take the company into new markets.

But growth is both challenging and painful, requiring difficult decisions for a company that can easily fail if its foundation is weak. Having worked for 20 years with SMEs that want to grow their businesses, I’ve learned that the best foundation is based on three pillars:

  1. The right strategy to build and manage your business model. It must be refined and tested until it creates value for all stakeholders, including shareholders, employees, and customers. It must also include a vision; the “what” component as opposed to the “how.”
  2. The capability and resources to support growth.
  3. The commitment and will to sustain growth. It’s a painful process and management must be willing to pay the price for reaching that next level. Growing a company requires sacrifices.

Full EDC post here: How small-medium enterprises can expand and succeed in global markets