Research and analysis on what changes as UK SMEs move from early-stage business into growth.
A new researched insight each week, with four brought together in the monthly The Business of Growth newsletter.
Customer insight can reveal real growth opportunities, but following customer demand too closely can also create cost, complexity and capability that adds little value beyond the customer asking for it. This article looks at where customer evidence should sit in a growth decision — and when management still needs to say no.
Published 5 October 2026.
Around 71% of UK SME employers say they aim to grow sales over the next three years, but exceptional growth is much rarer. Our research-informed High-Growth Founder Model looks at the capabilities associated with building a high-growth business — and how the founder’s role has to change as the organisation scales.
Published 4 October 2026.
Many smaller businesses are already using AI, but far fewer have integrated it into the systems that run the business. For a growing SME, the larger opportunity may lie in building AI into CRM, quoting, scheduling, finance and workflow so that the existing team can support more activity.
Source story: Financial Times — Chinese restaurant chains put AI on the menu, 16 September 2026.
Growth can expose several different constraints that look remarkably similar from the outside. This article separates capacity, capability and authority so that a growing business can diagnose what is preventing the required result before deciding how to resource it.
Published 14 September 2026.
As your business grows, we know that sales can become increasingly dependent on individual people (you!) and informal processes. This model sets out six disciplines that help turn that activity into a more structured, measurable and repeatable sales process — from generating and qualifying opportunities through to forecasting and scalable growth.
Use it to identify where your sales process is strong, and where growth is being constrained.
Download the high-resolution model ↓
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