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WHAT IS THE DEFINITION OF A HIGH GROWTH BUSINESS?

OK, lets explain what we mean by a high growth business. This is itself is a little tricky since there is no established definition of what constitutes a High Growth Business. The original description came from the USA where they coined the term “Gazelle” company.

David Birch first used this term in his 1979 report "The Job Generation Process," To him a high-growth business was defined as one that grows turnover by at least 20% annually for four years or more, starting from a base of at least $1 million. This growth pace means that the company has effectively doubled its revenues in less than 4 years.

The OECD takes a slightly broader view and defines a high growth business as ‘a firm of 10 or more employees that grows either its employees or turnover by an average of more than 20 per cent per year for three consecutive years.

What Is High Growth?

More recently in the UK the Government has defined high growth businesses growing at 20% pa with the capability of maintaining that rate for 3 years with the increasing sluggishness of the UK economy even this has been revised to growing by 60% over 3 years which equates to 17% pa.

The reason for the interest in so called high growth businesses is based on the following key statistic. That is whilst high growth businesses represent only about 5% of all businesses they drive over 50% of employment growth. In the OCTOPUS High Growth Small Business Report of 2014 High Growth Businesses represented just 3.4% of the UK economy this group generated more than 2/3rds of all jobs created between 2012 and 2013. It is now recognised that the so called high growth businesses are a key driver to the economy and are far more influential than the FTSE 350 in creating employment and generating growth.

If you are a high growth business and are looking for practical advice on how to grow faster for longer and with less stress then CONTACT US to see how we can help. We offer a variety of routes from specialist coaching and mentoring for you and your team, to access to unique specialist training programmes which offer practical help in how to be successful in the special conditions that exist in the high growth environment.