TORONTO - How a Canadian business is financed, planned, and managed will determine its success or failure says a new report. The study titled Managing for Growth, attempts to identify the challenges that business owners are facing within their companies and what can be done to help them.

"Growth challenges are mystifying to managers because they are largely invisible and intangible," said the study's lead researcher Dr. John Gordon, professor emeritus and former dean of Queen's School of Business. "This is the first study to define general patterns and trends in management as barriers to SME growth. Our intent is to offer SME leaders a starting point for change."

The report, sponsored by RBC Financial Group (RBC), Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters (CME), and Queen’s School of Business identifies nine key challenges. They are:

• planning for growth before it happens, which means reviewing and revising the business plan on a regular basis
• effectively targeting financing proposals to ensure that opportunities aren’t missed
• a willingness to reevaluate the company infrastructure so that a current growth rate can be maintained
• starting the business off with a professional and solid foundation so that it doesn’t run into trouble once the initial start-up phase is over
• opportunities to explore connections with colleagues, competitors, and other markets because the business owner is busy working on their own company goals
• adapting management skills as the company grows
• allowing for competent challenges of the entrepreneurs assumptions
• developing a company culture in the beginning and reinforcing those beliefs as the company grows
• better succession or exit planning so that the company isn’t vulnerable to unwanted takeovers or buyouts

Managing for Growth is an extension of the 2002 study Path to Prosperity. This previous report looked at the barriers to growth for both Canadian and American companies, and called for government policy changes to ease the challenges.

The full report can be found online at http://business.queensu.ca/sme/SMEFullReport.pdf.

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