Our Approach
Growth strategy is critical to help leaders define the choices in how to grow. Assessing the current market and determining where to expand business boundaries are major decisions to be made. Changing growth strategy can be like determining when to open a bottle of wine, you don’t know if you are too early, too late or just right for optimal experience, same with growth strategy if you wait too long to change or misread the industry, growth can easily stall. We assess growth strategy from a broad viewpoint and determine the market potential of the existing market, gap the growth goals and resources needed/available to determine where we need to expand the boundaries of the business. This maximizes growth potential or at least your perspective on how much the organization might reasonably grow.
Our approach provides a plan to deliver healthy, diversified growth ensuring a good mix of existing market growth and changes in portfolio makeup to sustain competitiveness and growth. Because of our specialization in strategic partnerships, we also can tweak growth rates higher by leveraging outside capabilities to increase speed-to-market and competitiveness versus more closed, traditional organizations as well as test growth options that others are still pondering.
Offerings
Growth Strategy Assessment & Development
We focus on topline growth in growth strategy. Bottom-line growth is a function of good strategy and operational effectiveness. A part of growth strategy is also to know when to exit businesses and refocus resources on the future and makeup of the portfolio or business. Growth strategy development typically provides a 3-5 year horizon defining growth goals, growth platforms and opportunity in a portfolio approach.
It is important to think broadly about growth and we define three generic growth strategies to help expand thinking and drive a broad-based growth strategy to maximize the ways in which to complete:
Make – do it yourself, where an innovation strategy is likely focused
Rent – collaborate or access new capabilities and assets with outsiders, partnership strategy including licensing
Buy – acquire capabilities, assets, know-how which is an acquisition focused strategy
Growth strategy also can be focused in one area or explored in both depending on the market situation:
- Competing to grow in existing markets or
- Expanding the business boundarie
Many times, we conduct growth strategy assessment as a precursor to help determine and narrow growth strategy development choices. Related strategies and tactics that help drive growth include marketing and sales strategy in existing channels and markets or new products, new businesses and business models and other solutions for growth.
Through our approach to growth strategy we deliver a roadmap of initiatives for growth. We also can be engaged to assess an existing growth strategy or growth initiative and present a business case and alternatives for the growth opportunity identified to ensure you make the best decisions and choices about where you allocate resources for growth.
Enabling Strategies for Growth
There are also enabling or execution growth strategy engagements that we also deliver focused on a specific growth strategy including:
Strategic Partnerships
We model strategic options and move in a lean startup approach to initial contact through outreach to potential partners; our services combine strategy and action to move smoothly from the typical strategic theory in partnerships to executable partnership options that provide new capability and resources to drive significant new revenue. Learn More
Global Strategy
We utilize a proprietary global strategy framework to develop a focused roadmap of initiatives; our services may include organization optimization to improve coordination considerations and clarify decision-rights, collaboration; critical consideration in our approach is to design a global launch strategy and a coordination model for priority setting when executing across regions. Learn More
Acquisition Strategy
Assess capabilities and identify categories, industries and specific targets for acquisition to fill a growth gap or opportunity.
Market & Customer Strategy
Strategy assessment or development including direct research for growth, competitive positioning or new market entry decisions
Case Studies
Develop Growth Strategy
Develop a 5-year growth strategy for an up & coming gourmet food manufacturer that would help them double the business. After a great run as a well-known specialty food manufacturer, the founder and management team needed to reassess their growth strategy. They knew that the past was not a good predictor of the future, and that they needed more rigorous, fact-based decision-making in their strategy. We helped them see the options for growth including shifting resources into more mainstream grocery and national expansion to grow their brand awareness and leadership position.
Assess Significant Growth Opportunities
Developed a business case for senior management to assess a new revenue opportunity in brand licensing for a major media company looking at opportunities in food & beverage. We assessed the market dynamics and sized the opportunities, presented structure changes as to how to execute and manage, and presented risks such as cannibalization to core business.
Reignite Growth
Developed a three-year strategy that focused the major division of a food & beverage company on three primary growth platforms. Identified marketing spending and innovation pipeline practices that were not effective. By focusing on fewer, more impactful areas, the team was able to reignite growth and retain market leadership in core categories at risk.
New-to-the-World Product Opportunity
Explored a new-to-the-world business opportunity in green packaging for a major supplier in the food & beverage industry. Determined that the feasibility to execute the program envisioned with premium pricing would be risky, but presented other solutions such as how a strategic-partnership style program could be leveraged for top-to-top communications that would strengthen relationships.
