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By M. Isi Eromosele
Companies often approach growth in one of two extreme ways: Execute better and deliver more from the existing business | Charter a team of big thinkers to look deep into the future.
Neither of the above approaches to growth stimulation will ensure complete success for most companies. A new perspective of growth can enable companies to set better growth targets, identify new opportunities, balance investments and risk and carry strategies into action with a clear view toward expectations.
The dual nature of growth requires that companies consolidate as well as expand their businesses as they exist now, even as they go about recreating the businesses as they will exist in the future. A certain level of uncertainty exists within the businesses of today as well as those of tomorrow. A major component of this uncertainty is business risk, which can be disruptive as well as interfere with the appropriate formulation and implementation of the growth strategy.
The following are the key questions that need to be answered as a company formulates a growth strategy:
Clarity and Bold Leadership
To implement a growth strategy requires bold leadership as well as clear business objectives. These business objectives should be very specific and attainable within the capabilities of the organization. The use of industry averages and benchmarks should be avoided. To be realistic and workable, a growth strategy should emerge from the interplay between internal and external factors, events and expectations. External factors may include the state of the market economy, the company’s market share, shareholder expectations and demands as well as industry and government regulations.
Internally, the company would have to consider its competencies, as exemplified by its talent and staff, its corporate culture, available resources and risk tolerance, among others.
Level of Sophistication
A well designed and sophisticated growth strategy would explore well beyond the industry standard of core, adjacent and new. While these classifications may be useful, they are insufficient in building a strong global growth strategy because they do not account for business uncertainty on a wholesome basis. Additionally, they not completely address the complexity involved in creating growth in the globally interconnected business world that exist today.
The critical success factor here is for the company to excel at figuring out how to integrate the promise of tomorrow’s potential business into today’s existing operations.
A company should comprehensively look at factors that would drive business growth along a continuum. In building the business of today, companies will typically focus on key areas such as customer retention, pricing optimization and improvements to existing offerings.
Moving along the scale toward choices that carry higher uncertainty and lie farther from existing operations, companies would need to start building the business of tomorrow by designing new offerings, expanding into new markets and geographies and creating entirely new business lines for new target customers.
Companies often approach growth in one of two extreme ways: Execute better and deliver more from the existing business | Charter a team of big thinkers to look deep into the future.
Neither of the above approaches to growth stimulation will ensure complete success for most companies. A new perspective of growth can enable companies to set better growth targets, identify new opportunities, balance investments and risk and carry strategies into action with a clear view toward expectations.
The dual nature of growth requires that companies consolidate as well as expand their businesses as they exist now, even as they go about recreating the businesses as they will exist in the future. A certain level of uncertainty exists within the businesses of today as well as those of tomorrow. A major component of this uncertainty is business risk, which can be disruptive as well as interfere with the appropriate formulation and implementation of the growth strategy.
The following are the key questions that need to be answered as a company formulates a growth strategy:
- Where and how do we look for growth?
- What appropriate level of growth are we looking for?
- How should the growth portfolio be aligned with the company’s business objectives?
- Which approach will be used to implement the growth strategy?
Clarity and Bold Leadership
To implement a growth strategy requires bold leadership as well as clear business objectives. These business objectives should be very specific and attainable within the capabilities of the organization. The use of industry averages and benchmarks should be avoided. To be realistic and workable, a growth strategy should emerge from the interplay between internal and external factors, events and expectations. External factors may include the state of the market economy, the company’s market share, shareholder expectations and demands as well as industry and government regulations.
Internally, the company would have to consider its competencies, as exemplified by its talent and staff, its corporate culture, available resources and risk tolerance, among others.
Level of Sophistication
A well designed and sophisticated growth strategy would explore well beyond the industry standard of core, adjacent and new. While these classifications may be useful, they are insufficient in building a strong global growth strategy because they do not account for business uncertainty on a wholesome basis. Additionally, they not completely address the complexity involved in creating growth in the globally interconnected business world that exist today.
The critical success factor here is for the company to excel at figuring out how to integrate the promise of tomorrow’s potential business into today’s existing operations.
A company should comprehensively look at factors that would drive business growth along a continuum. In building the business of today, companies will typically focus on key areas such as customer retention, pricing optimization and improvements to existing offerings.
Moving along the scale toward choices that carry higher uncertainty and lie farther from existing operations, companies would need to start building the business of tomorrow by designing new offerings, expanding into new markets and geographies and creating entirely new business lines for new target customers.
M. Isi Eromosele is the President | Chief Executive Officer | Executive Creative Director of Oseme Group - Oseme Creative | Oseme Consulting | Oseme Finance
Copyright Control © 2011 Oseme Group
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