Growing a Business ─ Strategies for Leaders & Entrepreneurs

Growth is a clear goal for ambitious entrepreneurs and leaders. It's often a short hand for business - and wider economic - success. But it's not without its pitfalls and challenges, and planning for, and managing, a growing business needs careful thought.

Take, for example, the start-up facing for the first time the need to balance flexibility with more structure. Or a larger business tackling a range of divisions evolving at different speeds. Or an inspirational owner-founder confronting the need to step back and let other take the business forward.

These are the kinds of challenges that Growing a Business tackles head-on. Drawing on a wide range of models and research and using case studies from across the business world, it offers practical advice and guidance on a whole range of topics, including:

the different types and stages of growth;
predicting the problems presented by growth;
identifying growth triggers and barriers;
the implications of growth: financially, culturally and for the people involved in the business.

Growing a Business is required reading for owners and managers looking to understand a foster growth in their businesses.

Rupert Merson is Adjunct Associate Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at the London Business School, where he teaches a range of courses around entrepreneurship and business development. Merson has previously also taught at INSEAD, CEIBS and ISB. In 2015, he won prizes as best teacher both at LBS and at INSEAD. Formerly a partner at BDO, he now runs his own consultancy advising firms on how to manage growth. He is also the author of Rules Are Not Enough (Profile Books; 2010).