Business Growth: Challenges, Principles, Opportunities & Process
Kevin Vince Fernando PhD, DBA, MBA, MBus, Mohammed Salleh, DBA, MBA, MEd, GCGI,
Introduction
Organizations that aim to remain at their current relative position need to go through continuous
growth and change. To improve their position they must grow and change at least twice as fast.
McKinsey research (Baghai, Coley, White, Conn and McLean 1996) on leading growth
companies across North America, Europe and Asia, record average compounded annual
growth rates in revenue of 25%. Companies like GE have set sustained organic annual revenue
growth rates of 8% (Stewart 2006). Although companies find it more advantageous to pay
attention to revenue growth very few do it well (Leinwand, Loehr & Shiram 2005). As leaders
and managers value creation has become the scorecard for performance and this scorecard
has two parts to it, the first is managing the performance gap by improving performance across
dimensions such as quality, costs, cycle time, productivity and profitability. The second is the
opportunity gap and profitably deploying resources to create new markets, new businesses and
a sense of broad direction (Prahalad 1991). This paper identifies the challenges organizations
confront when seeking profitable growth, defines three growth enabling fundamentals, provides
two approaches that organizations may adopt to identify possible growth opportunities. Specific
issues relating to managing growth in mature, dynamic and uncertain environments are also
discussed and finally a dual level process to manage growth for the short and long term is
outlined.
Challenges relating to Growth
Profitable growth while commonly defined in corporate reports and presentations as a priority
faces many challenges. Challenges vary between organizations and each need to identify their
specific challenges, develop strategies and actions to overcome them. These challenges have
been grouped into three broad categories of: leadership and strategy, markets and competition,
culture and structure. A summary of some of the typical challenges that fall under each of these
categories is summarized in Figure 1.
Leadership and strategy challenges – Executives feel nervous about their ability to grow
because they may not see many opportunities, nor do they see their companies generating
profitable growth ideas (Baghai, Coley & White with Conn & McLean 1996). Often leaders are
so intently focus on their existing businesses and customers that they fail to fully explore all
potential growth options available to them. Leaders need to have a clear perspective of what
initiatives are required to successfully achieve profitable growth. They need to avoid getting
seduced into believing that the latest strategy trend is the right choice or engaging in an
unfocused search for new growth ideas, not taking into consideration the organization’s existing
capabilities and assets. Some organizations have emphasized cost reduction so much, resulting
in practices, processes and organization designs that hinder growth. Signs of an organization
focus on cost reduction include, large headquarters to facilitate tight control, all new product
launches having to go through multiple levels of approval resulting in a slow launches, overly
complex operations and product mixes, excessive time spent on internal negotiations and
reporting. Management attention at these organizations, tend to be on internal operations and
not the customer, resulting in slow response to changing customer and market needs.
Markets and competition challenges – Organizations are finding it difficult to deliver and
sustain growth in the face of increased competition and commoditization. Many customers are
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trading down to cheaper brands, private labels or generics. M&A activities in the market result in
industry consolidation creating large strong competitors with global reach. The challenge to
move dependence out of highly commoditized markets is being experience across multiple
industries. Moving out of these markets requires organizations to have a detailed plan to pave
their way out. In a competitive market growth strategies need to take into account the secondary
effects of likely competitor reactions and explicitly incorporate them into strategic plan. Growth
in the future depends on managing, leveraging and defending the total assets of the
organization both tangible and intangible. Intangible assets include customer relationships,
intellectual capital, insight into current and future customer needs, the ability to leverage and
develop talent and differentiating organizational processes and systems. In dynamic and
competitive markets sustainable growth requires organizations to anticipate the future and its
likely impact on customers, markets, technologies and value propositions.
Figure 1
Examples of organizational challenges relating to growth
Category
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Leadership &
Strategy
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Markets
&
Competition
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Culture
Structure
&
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Types of Challenges
Slow decision making
Lack of clarity on what initiatives will drive successful and profitable
growth
Excessive focus on cost reduction
Intent focus on existing business and not exploring new growth options
Unfocussed search for new ideas without taking into consideration
organizational capabilities
Unaware of the value of intangible assets within the organization and a
failure to leverage them
Focus on the now while ignoring how the future of their markets and
industry is developing
Promoting a lot of activity, lacking focus, follow through for results and
regular reviews on progress of growth initiatives
Impatience not allowing new ventures to develop before cutting them off
and jumping onto the next new thing
Failure to plan ways out of highly commoditized markets
Failure to get other key stakeholders to face up to the risk of not making
changes
Customers trading down to cheaper brands, private labels and generics
Increased competition and commoditization of products as a result of
globalization, technology maturity and new channels of distribution
Consolidation of industry through mergers and acquisitions creating
large competitors with global reach and benefits from economies of
scale
Practices, processes and organization designs that hinder growth with
an emphasis on cost reduction and risk avoidance
People are unwilling to suggest or propose new growth ideas /
opportunities
A lot of time spent on internal negotiations and reporting
Focus on internal operations excellence and not on the customer
Failure to invest in modern systems to facilitate improved connectivity,
communication and co-ordination.
Change resistant culture, preferring the status quo
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Culture and structure challenges – The culture of an organization is like the DNA of an
individual. It really helps shed light on why things are done or not done. In some organizations
there is a lot of activity and a large number of projects ongoing and a lot of leadership attention
but little results to show. Incentives reward the wrong kinds of behaviour that impede growth
enabling behaviours. Information systems fail to provide the level of connectivity and information
transparency required to drive growth. Management and leadership decision making is slow
hindering progress. Growth initiatives are launched but are not subject to regular reviews on
progress by the right level of leadership. Organization structures are overly bureaucratic and
discourage creativity, risk taking and departures from the status quo.
In summary the list of challenges highlight the issues that leadership needs to assess in the
context of their organization and identify suitable corrective actions. Having addressed the
challenges to growth the next section outlines some general principles that are universally
applicable to organization’s committed to growth.
Organization Fundamentals for Growth
The quest for and achievement of profitable growth needs to be an initiative that is embraced
across the organization. Making this happen requires three integrated components of growth:
enabling leadership, effective use of performance levers, design and deployment of enabling
systems. These three components effectively aligned create an organizational context equipped
with the fundamentals to support growth initiatives. A summary of some of the actions under
each of these components is presented in Figure 2.
Growth enabling leadership – This starts with an effort to get a realistic perspective of the
current situation, its alignment with the market, core competencies, future outlook, risk and
challenges. Next is the need to define a future vision and direction that will engage the total
workforce. Specific growth segments and opportunities need to be identified, targeted and
detailed action plans to penetrate. Effective growth enabling leadership prevents leaders from
proposing standard blanket growth formulas such as globalization or emerging market
expansion. Instead it drives the need to create customized strategies for the organization.
Performance levers – Control of business strategy is achieved by integrating levers of control.
In situations of high growth detailed performance goals, budgets and incentives need to be
established. Decentralized accountability structures with market based profit centers need to be
established with top management clearly communicating core values, vision and strategic
boundaries (Simons 2000). Levers may be perceived as mechanisms at the disposal of
management to influence workforce behaviours and align efforts to support growth. Examples of
performance levers include compensation and incentive systems, performance management
programs, employee communication mechanisms, organization structures, performance metrics
and leadership roles, positions and personalities. These mechanisms effectively shape the
culture and values of the organization.
Enabling systems – This relates to all operational and support systems, processes and
procedures that are put in place. For example if an organization aims to grow by leveraging its
global footprint and access to strategic customers it may see the need for a global customer
relationship management program to be designed and put in place. Alternatively if the
organization aims to improve its level of innovation it may see the need for systems that
promote global connectivity and information sharing. Systems and processes need to ensure
© April 2011 Fernando Kevin Vince, Salleh Mohammed
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that they are aligned with the strategic needs of the business and support efforts to improve
value-add to existing and new customers.
Figure 2
Actions to support the implementation of growth enabling components
Dimensions
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Growth
Enabling
Leadership
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Performance
levers
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Enabling
Systems
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Description
Seek to understand the core & differentiating capabilities of the
organization
Establish a clear understanding of company’s product / service offering
in terms of value / cost relationship as perceived by the customer.
Drive the need to make clear strategic choices on existing and new
markets / segments / customers to focus on for growth
Lead efforts to ensure that business models fit with target growth
markets
Seek to understand the inherent growth potential of the organization’s
current portfolio of businesses and how the organization is performing
Create a future perspective of the industry and get other key decision
makers and stakeholders to face up to the risk of not innovating
Clearly define the organization changes and new capabilities required
to support growth
Aligning growth initiatives to progressively move the organization to the
desired revenue mix in light of target profit levels.
Link growth and cost management strategies so that they are
perceived as mutually reinforcing and not either or strategies.
Seek to create new competitive space and growth options by
challenging established paradigms relating to price- performance
tradeoffs and spend time to identify niche sub-segments
Design organization structures and mechanisms that promote a
customer focus, cross-functional teamwork and shared performance
metrics.
Put leaders with a growth perspective and the ability to manage for
results into key positions of influence
Design incentives systems that promote profitable growth and
accountability.
Align performance measures across the organization to create a focus
on profitable growth and the customer.
Invest in information systems that enable effective information sharing,
market and customer intelligence and promote connectivity.
Promote innovation and manage new product development, process
improvements and business model to achieve a balanced of short term
(e.g. Product extensions and improvements) and long term (e.g.
Breakthrough technologies) projects.
Align support functions such as HR, IT & Finance to be internal
customer focus and providing services that operational department
would be willing to pay for.
Invest in capability and talent development efforts to support the
growth renewal process.
Align capital expenditure and core financial processes to support
growth strategies.
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Growth Opportunity Identification
Sustainable growth requires a series of measured steps directed toward a broad growth vision
that makes money, adds new capabilities and better prepares the organization to open up and
take advantage of available opportunities. Conventional approaches to growth include mergers
and acquisitions, geographic expansion, competitive pricing and extending product lines and
mixes. Due to the need to find new ways to grow some of the new approaches to growth tend to
stress share of wallet expansion, leveraging opportunities arising from new regulations (e.g.
environmental laws), the application of existing technologies to new markets, leveraging
distinctive capabilities and innovative business models. Such listing of generic growth options
are easily available each organization needs to develop its own growth strategy.
Established and mature organizations tend to evolve into performance engines where every
task, process and activity is repeatable and predictable (Govindarajan & Trimble 2010) and this
tends to quell entrepreneurial capabilities to identify and pursue new growth opportunities.
Managers and leaders in these organizations have been promoted into their roles due to their
ability to perform within established boundaries. Thus it is logical that many of these leaders
would find it challenging to break away from the status quo. This presents a practical leadership
question:
How can a mature organization facilitate growth opportunity identification and idea
generation discussions with their leaders?
Two approaches are recommended as easily applied solutions to the above question. The first
is to develop a list of growth focus strategic questions to be presented during a management
discussion workshop to generate growth opportunity idea generation and exploration. The
second is to develop and present a growth planning framework that is systematically worked
through to identify growth opportunities.
Asking Strategic Growth Questions: The best way to get ideas from multiple levels is to ask
the right questions. Asking the right questions gets people to focus on the right issues and does
not hinder creativity because the process does not suggest any right answer or preferred path.
Examples of questions that may be presented for a discussion relating to growth:
 What other products and services does the organization have the potential to provide?
 What are emerging legislative priorities that the organization can leverage on for new
business?
 What other markets can the organization’s products and technologies be modified to suit
and able to provide customer value?
 How can the organization apply our distinctive capabilities to develop new products and
service offerings?
 How can the organization innovate away from its existing business model to tap into new
business opportunities or gain access to untapped segments / markets?
 What are the important product attributes and how can they be improved for increased
customer value?
 Under what conditions will growth be sustainable in our industry?
 What are the bottle necks that currently limit our growth?
 How can we shape the organization structure and incentive systems to drive growth?
Growth Planning Framework: The development and use of a structured framework provide a
common reference point around which growth opportunities may be identified and discussed.
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Frameworks act as a common lens through which team discussions may be facilitated to list
down all possible growth options for further evaluation. An example of such a framework is
presented in Figure 3. The framework was developed based on a case study of how successful
organizations grow. There are four broad lenses: customers, markets and segments,
innovations, mergers and acquisitions. These four are further expanded into thirteen growth
options to consider. Whatever growth options and opportunities are identified they need to be
developed to a level of specificity that they can be acted on. Once a list of growth opportunities
and options are listed down leaders can proceed to subject each to more stringent evaluation
and a selection process, deciding where it will commit resources in the short, medium and long
term. All the initiatives need to be aligned into an integrated effort that reinforces each other
toward a larger overarching organization-wide growth strategy.
Figure 3
Growth opportunity mapping framework
Lens
Possible Opportunities
Increasing Share of Total Buy
Customers
Expand Product & Services offerings
New Customer Development
Markets &
Segments
Gain Share of Existing Market
New Segment Development
Creating New Niche Segments
Product Extensions
Innovations
Product Breakthroughs
Growth
Opportunity
Possibilities
& Options
Business Model Innovations
Vertical Expansions
Mergers &
Acquisitions
Consolidation
Adjacency Expansion
Portfolio Diversifications
Growth in mature industries
A mature industry may be described as one where there are many competitors of equal size or
larger with similar asset bases. Capabilities that provide firms competitive advantage in mature
markets are its ability to leverage, strengthen and diversify its resources. Leveraging in this
context refers to the ability to share and exploit competencies in the pursuit of new opportunities.
These capabilities are a result of organizational possesses that are hard to copy and a result of
making choices to do a few things really well and delivered in an integrated manner able to:-
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Develop a new technologies that provides an unbeatable advantage meeting customer
needs better or meets needs customers are not aware of as yet;
Make claims that add substantial value to the customer and serve as a point of
differentiation;
Build a brand that has unique characteristics and clear dominance in a the market;
Seek to develop an emotional component into the brand and the experience;
Make new products difficult to copy;
Effectively manage value chain integration, alignment and commitment.
An example of this approach in action is how Caterpillar used its brand name, manufacturing
capacities, sales network and worldwide spare parts distribution and servicing capabilities in a
coordinated strategy acting as distinct barriers that kept its competitors at bay (Chakravarthy
1997).
Diversification is another common growth option for firms in mature markets. Companies
diversify for many reasons such as to compensate for technological obsolescence, to distribute
risk, utilize excess productive capacity, reinvest earnings, broaden technology base, improve
coverage, and stabilize sales. When diversification is done as a means to develop new
capabilities perceived as a route to create new growth opportunities and strategic options for the
organization, it needs to be done without pre-empting or constraining future flexibilities of the
organization. Diversifying to develop new capabilities and developing them into a portfolio of
distinctive capabilities requires leaders to make a variety of decisions not just what to acquire,
but what to divest, what human capital investment, what recruitment, IT, other technologies and
alliances are required. A three step process for capability portfolio development supporting
growth is (Mainardi, Leinwand and Lauster 2008):
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Step 1: Identify capabilities that require development - These should be linked to the
drivers of demand, focus on the highest potential market, based on an understanding of
what the target customers will respond and what is required to set the organization apart
from the competition.
Step 2: Develop an investment and action plan to fill the gaps through product
development, business and technology acquisitions that provide the required capabilities.
Step 3: Divest businesses and assets that do not fit with the future growth direction of
the firm.
In summary growth in mature industries requires organizations to make choices on what
existing capabilities to excel at a differentiated performance level and deliver them in a valueadded integrated approach. Simultaneously there is also a need to identify and deploy
strategies that will enable them to develop new capabilities to support their future growth efforts.
Growth in Dynamic & Uncertain Environments
In dynamic and uncertain environments forward looking strategy is critical. Forward looking
strategy needs to consider what asset / market combinations the organization will serve in the
short versus the medium to long term and what it believes will be the basis for its competitive
advantage and value differentiation. Actions that drive short-term objective achievement need to
be carried out concurrent with medium to long term initiatives that assure the organization
sustainable growth. Organizations in dynamic and uncertain environments with a focus on the
short term only expose themselves to excessive risk and in extreme situations death.
© April 2011 Fernando Kevin Vince, Salleh Mohammed
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Perspectives of erecting barriers to entry and continuous improvement efforts designed around
benchmarking pro-long survival but will not lead to industry leadership. Growth strategy planning
under such conditions require first anticipating how existing customer needs and markets will
develop in the future and second evaluating how the portfolio of businesses and revenue
sources need to change thus directing future capital and capability development investments.
Future changes to existing customer needs and markets - Anticipating the future requires
trend observation and insight generation relating to changing customer needs, behaviour,
emergence of new market leaders, competitor actions, the competitive environment and
technology trends. Diagnosing how these dimensions may change requires the organization to
establish a system to track the drivers of this change and to identifying the possible impact they
will have on market and customers over the medium to long term. Figure 4 provides an example
of a template that may be used to facilitate this exercise. With an understanding of these drivers,
the organization is faced with the question if they want to be driven in a reactive mode or to
drive the direction of the change through market shaping innovation.
Figure 4
Analyzing future developments of existing markets
Driver
Emerging
Technologies
Competitive
offerings
Economic
conditions
Environmental
conditions
Regulatory
initiatives
Description
Intensity
(H/ M /L)
Summary Description
& Impact
What
are
the
emerging
technologies? How soon will they
take off? What is the likely impact
on the organization? Are new
developments primarily continuous
innovations or discontinuous?
What are competitors offering?
What alternatives solutions exist to
meet customer needs?
What is the economic outlook for
the market? What are economic
drivers that are impacting the
market? What are the areas of
concern to customers?
What are the environmental and
social concerns that are impacting
the industry and customers?
What relevant legislative and
political actions are taking place?
What is their likely impact on
customers and the market?
Future business & / or revenue stream portfolio - The attractiveness of a business portfolio
changes over time as markets mature. Taking into consideration future developments evaluated
under the previous section (Figure 5) organization’s need to decide how they need to
restructure their portfolio of businesses &/or revenue streams in order to continue to have
access to attractive growth level opportunities and options. Decisions will result in efforts to
acquire new businesses, develop new capabilities, divestiture of some businesses and phased
exit from selected markets and segments. Forward multiple time horizon growth planning and
© April 2011 Fernando Kevin Vince, Salleh Mohammed
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investment management is at the core of medium to long term sustainable growth strategies.
Key questions that need to address include:



What is the firm’s growth vision and goals for the long term?
What dimensions should be used to map the organization’s business &/or revenue
stream portfolio?
What is the right balance within the portfolio that can be effectively managed given the
resource constraints of the organization?
Growth Processes
Successful organizations are able to balance the day to day business and future focus growth
initiatives. They are able to clearly differentiate between the urgent from the important and
manage both proactively. They do not treat growth as a project but as an ongoing key part of
the business that needs growth management (Lester 2009). Growth needs to be managed as a
process given that renewal efforts require transformative change (Stewart 2006). Ad-hoc
processes on the other hand can lead companies to implement new ideas based on flawed or
overly focused aggressive assumptions. Having a growth management process ensures that
management time resources and management attention are deployed with focus, manage risk,
consistency and discipline.
The growth management process outlined in this paper starts with the executive and strategic
leadership team going through a seven step process outlined in Figure 6 (Table A) to map out a
broad growth agenda comprising a vision, list of strategic growth options, required investments,
identifying strategic capabilities for future sustainable growth. The appointment of the “right”
leadership talent to champion growth initiatives need to be decided, cross functional / cross
business co-ordination mechanisms need to be put in place, team working incentives and
performance metrics to track progress need to be established.
Strategic options are areas of investment that the organization needs to make to open up
opportunities that will enable it to reach their target growth level. The organization needs to have
stretch objectives assigned that drive creativity and initiative, high levels of trust, discipline and
accountability through execution, collaborative support and continuous learning. The first step
when working with options is to secure an opportunity. If it shows promise the next step would
be to test the concept further and help accumulate the confidence and capabilities to progress
on.
Growth strategy cannot be confined to a small group of top leaders instead it needs to be an
organization wide agenda that is broken down into short-term progressive actions. At the same
time initiatives focused on the medium to long term need to be launched, progress tracked,
growth potential continuously reviewed and appropriate decisions taken. The output from the
seven step process (Figure 5 Table A) needs to be cascaded to the next level of leadership to
map out detailed actions plans for the short term and the medium to long term.
The short-term growth management process outlined in Figure 6 (Table B), focus on organic
growth with targeted customers, efforts to defend and position against competitors and to
improve value proposition offering. While this is part of the day to day management of the
business, other teams need to be working on making progress on growth initiatives linked to
medium to long term growth. This requires disciplined actions to explore, experiment, plan
capital allocation to test strategic growth option, evaluate and build future capabilities and renew
© April 2011 Fernando Kevin Vince, Salleh Mohammed
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the organization’s growth options portfolio dropping those that prove unsuitable while adding
new ones that emerge as a result of market developments and emerging trends.
Figure 5
Generic growth management process cascading into a short term and
medium term growth management process
Generic Seven Step Process
(Table A)
Step 1
Identify strategic growth options
Step 2
Cluster & select focus differentiating capabilities
Step 3
Create a vision aligning the focus capabilities
Step 4
Assign the right leaders and team
Step 5
Define accountabilities & move decision making
closer to customer
Step 6
Manage cross functional networks to meet
customer expectations.
Step 7
Track progress and share success cases
Growth Planning and Management for Short and Medium / Long term
Short-Term Growth
Medium /Long Term Growth
(Table B)
(Table C)
Target Markets  Segments 
Define business vision
Customers
Identify customer needs against
Develop future outlook of market &
current capabilities
industry dynamics
Understand competitive offering
Select areas to focus on for future growth
Develop a superior value proposition
Allocate resources to create future growth
options and develop required capabilities
Present & manage objections &
Map out medium / long term growth
customer perceived risk
enabling capability development initiatives
Close sale
Co-ordinate organization wide initiatives
Manage against competitor actions &
Monitor developments, early wins, reshort-term emergent issues.
evaluate & align ongoing investment &
capability development efforts
Measure progress against
Move confirmed options into mainstream
performance objectives and measures
business for efficiency and main stream
growth management / discard unattractive
options.
© April 2011 Fernando Kevin Vince, Salleh Mohammed
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Conclusion on Managerial Implications
The paper provides a high level target that organizations striving to be growth leaders may
aspire towards. The list of growth challenges grouped under three broad categories of
leadership and strategy, markets and competition, culture and structure may be used as a
checklist to diagnose current organizational challenges that need to be dealt with. Following the
diagnosis, leaders may then proceed to evaluate and establish the three fundamentals required
to support growth. These three being: instilling growth enabling leadership, designing and
deploying performance levers and enabling systems. The next step would be to use the growth
opportunity framework to facilitate discussions to identify a list of growth opportunities and
options in the short, medium and long term. Finally the growth management process may be
adapted to suit the organization and assist the overall management of the organizations growth
strategy, opportunity, options and initiatives selection and deployment.
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About The Authors
Dr Kevin Fernando is a specialist human resource practitioner who brings more than 18 years
of industrial experience. He is a Registered Certified Trainer with the American Management
Association (AMA), and is a regular speaker at regional conferences. Dr Fernando is the author
of several books focusing on Human Resources, Strategy, Productivity Management, Sales
Planning, and Leadership. He is currently the Chief Operating Officer of Infastech Private
Limited.
Dr. Mohammed Salleh has served as the managing director of a well-known executive training
organization in Singapore and is currently the Academic Registrar & Director of SBP Academia
Limited. He has written numerous scholarly articles on supervision, strategy and management.
Dr. Salleh has extensive experience in management in supervisory positions. He is a founding
Fellow of the Institute of leadership & Management (UK), a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts,
and the College of Teachers, London. Dr. Salleh is a Council Member and Vice President (Asia
Pacific) of the Society of Business Practitioners, United Kingdom.
© April 2011 Fernando Kevin Vince, Salleh Mohammed
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Published in TWINTEC Business School Review June 2011, Volume 1 : Issue 3. Twintech International University College of Technology