If you want to grow your business, you need a strategy. Sometimes companies get lucky and their product or service is an instant hit, but for the most part, successful growth requires careful planning. You have to create a plan and implement it, whether you want to expand horizontally into new geographic areas or vertically into different industries. Here are some key tips for implementing an effective business growth strategy. To determine the best ways to increase your market share, first, you need to identify what your target customers are looking for and what value you can provide them.
For example, you may find that your current products are not meeting the needs of a certain segment of your market, or you can identify potential customer segments by conducting surveys and focus groups. This step is critical because it will help shape expectations for your growth project and determine if your goals are attainable. After identifying your target audience, you need to understand what’s happening in your industry. This can be achieved by conducting research with existing and prospective customers, as well as digging into industry data to identify trends. This will not only help you to develop a more comprehensive growth strategy but will also assist with your resource allocation. To support your company’s growth aspirations, it’s important to invest in the right set of enablers.
These include your organization’s approaches, operational processes, functional capabilities and strategic initiatives. Outperformers prioritize their enablers based on their specific growth strategy and operating context, and they track both leading and lagging indicators to align their aspirations with reality. Once you have the necessary resources in place, it’s time to execute your growth strategy. This includes setting clear performance metrics, holding stakeholders accountable, and comparing initial results to your forecasted projections. It’s also crucial to communicate openly and frequently with your team throughout the process. The final step is to constantly refine and refresh your growth strategy. This can be as simple as re-aligning your target audience or as complex as creating new product lines to expand your revenue streams.
By continuously evaluating your growth strategy and making adjustments as needed, you can keep your business on the right path towards sustainable success. Creating a new, disruptive product or service is one of the most challenging but rewarding forms of growth. It involves a major investment in people and capital, and can result in significant risk, especially in the short term. However, companies like Hewlett-Packard and Burger King have shown that the effort can pay off in the long run. Often, a breakthrough comes from bringing together different knowledge disciplines to reimagine how a product is made or a service is delivered.
