There are tremendous advantages that come along with buying an already established business.  You get the golden opportunity to become a successful entrepreneur without having to start from the scratch. It has been observed that more and more entrepreneurs are bending towards buying a well-recognised business in a fast-moving business world. The number of people looking to purchase existing businesses has been on the increase and is expected to touch heights in the future as well.

Buying a business is generally considered less risky than starting a brand new company, with little to invest. It eradicates many of the pain points involved in getting a start-up off the ground. It gives you numerous advantages such as hiring the right people, developing products, or building a strong customer base which are all valuable assets for a business. When you buy a successfully running business, it sheds off the costs of launching a new company or brand. The only thing you have to do is to fully understand the business that you’re going to purchase before closing the deal, and you are good to go.

Here are 5 major advantages of buying an existing business rather than starting a new one:

1. Focus on growing the business

When you buy an already established business, you can concentrate on growing the business immediately. You don’t need to set up the business or build it but focus on increasing the growth and gaining more profits. An entrepreneur has to collect all his energy into getting the business off the ground, which takes a lot of time and is exhausting at the same time. On the other hand, when you buy an already established business, you are free to focus on the particular parts of the business that needs the most attention, leading to the growth of the business.

2. Proven Business Concept

Establishing a business is a cumbersome task and takes a lot of efforts. Only the initial planning phase takes large amounts of time when you are writing the business plan and figuring out how to execute it. But with an established business you already have a proven concept. You have already other things such as:

 A proper office space– A company that has been running successfully already has an appropriate workspace with all the necessary inventory and equipment

Established brand and its own identity– An established business is already a brand with its own unique identity. It already has a track record with all the associated trademarks, websites and copyright. A brand name gives confidence to the customers, lenders, suppliers and others in your business which they don’t have a new start-up or business.

Already trained employees– An existing business already has a team of talented people who are already trained in their work. It takes a lot of time in building and training a team. These people are already working well, which makes it easier to implement your strategies.

An understanding of your competition and market- An existing business does have some structure that will save you a lot of time and let you quickly focus on other things. It gives you proper understanding of the market and your competitors.

3. Established Network

A greatly built customer base– You don’t have to create a customer base as you get to own a brand that has already its customers at the ready.

Established network of contacts and manufacturing resources– Having good manufacturing resources and marketing contacts is essential to run a business successfully. With a running business, you don’t have to gear up a huge sales team in order to built vendors and supplier base. A lot of time and energy is required for establishing a whole network of contacts. Also, the vendors and the suppliers offer affirmative terms to a business that has been doing well for a while.

4. Lower Operating Costs

Gathering enough capital to start a new business is the trickiest part of starting a new business. If you don’t have enough capital, it’s not possible to start a business. Hence, when you get a successfully leading business, you don’t need that much money. Your operating costs will be much lower than having to start something from scratch as many parts of the business are already in place. You don’t have to build a customer base, hire employees or develop marketing strategies. In fact, you can use the money for expanding the business as per your plan.

5. Less Risk

The best and the most useful advantage that one gets after buying a well-established business is a much lower rate of risk. This is definitely a safer option, and there is much lesser financial risk involved in buying a new business.

When you start a new business, you can never predict that how your financial needs will vary and hence there are a lot of risks involved due to the financial uncertainty which gets eliminated with an existing business.