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Fifty-two percent of the Fortune 500 firms since 2000 no longer exist ­– they’ve either been acquired, filed for bankruptcy or went out of business. In 2010, Blackberry had a 45% market share of the cell phone market vs Apple at 25%, Microsoft at 15%, and Android at 7% – today it’s rare to see a Blackberry.

Failure to adapt to the constantly evolving industry will reflect the sustainability of your organization’s performance. It’s important to have a clear innovation strategy in place to be able to identify these obstacles to growth. By carving innovation into your business strategy, the ability to leverage technology for business growth and stability has become easier than ever.

Having the right tools to manage change successfully is critical for growth.  Many organizations feel a lack of control over profits, revenue, idea creation, new product introductions, points of collaboration, community and customer experience.

Digital transformation is a catalyst for change. It’s not dependent on what technology a company uses, but rather that they embrace the need for it and utilize appropriate systems. Whether that is transforming internal processes, positioning the business for major growth or gaining a new competitive edge, digital technology is a pivotal tool for transformation.

However, business technology is sometimes relegated to being an IT project, when it should be considered a business project. Innovation for the enterprise is often synonymous with business transformation. Organizations that fail to adapt run the risk of stagnancy – or worse, failure.

Although the Great Recession caught us by surprise, economic growth is back. It’s been more than 10 years since the Great Recession and we know that comebacks haven’t been equal for all organizations. It’s been harder than ever to start and scale a business, because growth isn’t easy.

However, many companies did survive. By 2017, revenue growth increased by single-digit percentages for many. Companies that were able to succeed are using effective strategies and tools to overcome obstacles to business growth.

As your business looks for ways to continue on an upward trend, identifying what’s in your way on your path to success is crucial. Some of the top obstacles to business growth include:

There are more than 140,000 new websites each day – it’s easy to get lost in the shuffle, or for potential customers to be unaware they even need the product you’re selling. Finding the next customer is hard without data, but business technology can be that missing piece to help provide context and information for your sales team that’s looking for your next prospect.

We know why improving internal business processes helps companies save on costs with higher efficiency and increased productivity. We also know improving business processes helps improve customer service. Many companies are now implementing ERP with not only their business operations in mind, but also their customers as well.

The customer is always right; we’ve all heard the expression. However, today the customer is not only always right – the customer always has options. Companies and their employees can be difficult to change, but it’s inevitable. Top business leaders must be able to pivot when necessary, make efficient decisions and develop creative solutions. By having up-to-date data, you can access the information you need to better serve your customers.

It’s obvious that increasing profits is the key to business growth and success. However, greater transaction volume and faster speed will ultimately put a lot of pressure on your financial systems. Getting full audit trails, business planning reporting and automating processes requires adding systems.

Therefore, standalone financial systems can’t handle stronger financial controls or skew management support for complex financial processes. Complex business requirements across finance, revenue and procurement inventory isn’t possible to if you have multiple disparate systems. Having one central interface where you can view real-time financial information is crucial to getting cash in the door faster.

Having everything in one suite can also save time and deliver better reporting. Disparate systems don’t talk – slower transactions take up more time and reduce capacity for transactions occurring at a given time. By moving to a single, unified cloud system, you can effectively and competitively implement reoccurring processes to automate and better organize data.

The old phrase “You have to spend money to make money” only works when you know how much money you have. All organizations must take a pulse of their KPIs and other measures to accurately and confidently describe generated revenue. Clear visibility provides leadership with current information that allows better informed, strategic decisions.

Businesses serious about growing their revenue understand the state of their financial affairs. The path toward revenue growth is continuous. Once your organization takes necessary steps to establish a healthy financial system while maintaining and revising the processes needed to preserve financial health, revenue growth will follow.

Technologies and industries change, and processes that worked efficiently before can be improved to scale with you. As your business grows or expands, you may outgrow certain technologies or processes. As you achieve your business goals, evaluate and set new ones.

For years, growing businesses across the world have chosen NetSuite. Thousands of organizations rely on this software to help put their business in the best possible position to succeed.

NetSuite customers have an edge – they are growing up to three times as fast as the rest of the market, with a 17% increase in revenue growth by 2017.

As a unified system, NetSuite is a one-stop-shop for business data necessary for processing end-to-end transactions. NetSuite employs tools for sales and marketing automation, accounting, finance, inventory management, customer service management and comprehensive reporting and analysis, providing a 360-degree view into potential customers.

The more businesses leverage NetSuite, the more they continue to grow. For example, those that use the NetSuite commerce platform see even more growth – 24% more.

NetSuite users’ ability to scale and execute are unsurpassed. With making finances more efficient, automating manual processes and shortening financial close, NetSuite will continue to be ranked the fastest-growing financial management platform in the world, currently with more than 36,000+ customers worldwide.