How Do You Drive Growth in a Mature Software Business?

Within Lumine Group, we value learning from each other and sharing best practices across the Portfolio. This article is the third in our 4-part Lumine Group Insight Series containing tips and best practices from our business leaders. This installment will feature Q&A from David Nyland, and David Sharpley.

We asked the team, “How do you drive growth in mature software businesses?”

David Nyland - President, Lumine Group

The first step is to build a strong core.

Profitable yet sustainable growth first requires a strong core business, no matter the size of the company. Strengthening one’s core can be achieved by maintaining discipline across all functional areas of the business.

At Lumine Group, we have a business playbook to help our companies optimize profitability using proven best practices. This translates into predictable outcomes and sustained profitability. Once we have a strong and profitable core business, capital deployment is business-case driven and typically takes the form of sales, marketing, and new product investments.

We value growth above all else, so this is a key focus for us.

David Sharpley - CEO, Incognito Software Systems

Profitable growth is based on two key factors – getting closer to your existing customer base and gaining new customers.

Relative to the latter, from my experience, businesses commonly make an investment in order to secure a new logo, given the fact customers are taking a risk on a new vendor (or expanded footprint). Normally this is a wise ROI if you know up-front, the level of investment being made and comfortable in the assumptions (growth, costs, etc.)

Expanding within your existing customer base is critical for the growth of the company and can be very rewarding. Your customers have a true lens on your operational execution, and if positive, can be advantageous. As in any relationship, whether business or personal, trust is foundational.

Trusting relationships can be leveraged for the mutual benefit of customer and vendor stakeholders.