GROWTH
Accept that You Might Not Be Able to Do it All Yourself! (Pt. 1)
An important step when considering your growth plan is to set out not just by how much you want to grow, but also within what timeframe. Remember the rules about objective setting – it’s the ‘T’ in SMART.
Setting a timeframe around your growth objectives is important in that it will then help you rule in and rule out the various strategies at your disposal for achieving the growth you desire. Marketing academics point at four ways to grow a business:
- Market penetration – sell more to the same audience
- New market expansion – sell more to new audiences
- New product introduction – sell new products to existing audiences
- Diversification – sell new products to new audiences
Growth Strategy
Each growth strategy increases in the level of risk and change as you move down this list.
The decision about the mix of strategies to employ will be based on a number of factors including your appetite for risk, your assessment of market opportunity, the capabilities within your organisation to deliver the required strategy and your desired timescales for execution.
For businesses looking to deliver a steep change in the rate of growth, it is likely that you will have to do something differently, and once you have identified what that ‘something’ is, you can assess whether you have the capability within your organisation to deliver the change with internal resources or whether you need to consider using additional resources from outside of your business.
Consider whether your plan affords you to time to recruit or grow the skills organically or whether it makes business sense to buy them in? It’s a simple business decision based on the speed of delivery you want to achieve for your growth plans.
Make sure you also check out Part 2 of this article. If you want to discuss your growth plans with me, please do get in touch.
