Читать книгу Growing the Top Line - Cliff Farrah - Страница 25

Growth strategy is complex. Growth strategy is risky. Growth strategy is an art that can’t be taught. These are three of the biggest myths in enterprise business today. If you can answer four questions for your business, you can develop a growth strategy. The questions are simple, powerful, and linked to both risk and reward.

When I started Beacon, the challenge I had was to teach my way of thinking to the people I worked with. There is quite a bit of subjectivity to the approach, but over time I was able to determine that there were objective key risk/reward questions that drove success and failure as my clients executed growth plans in their worlds.

Beyond customer and goods/services elements, there is a near‐limitless group of questions that strategists consider depending on their industry and company. It’s what I call the Strategist’s Challenge: If there are no boundaries to your creativity, how do you know what to focus on?

I always have looked at decision‐making from a pareto position. What are the most critical things to worry about as you plan a successful growth strategy? The initial, most clarifying questions to help a strategist plan and focus? The greatest risk/reward variables? Based on my analysis and experience, there are Four Key Questions to consider.

 Which CUSTOMERS will I serve?

 Which GEOGRAPHIES AND LOCATIONS will I serve?

 What GOODS AND SERVICES will I sell?

 What BUSINESS MODEL will I use?

Our work shows that if you can answer these questions, you can build a successful growth strategy. If you miss on these, it’s pretty tough to do well.

Our next chapter focuses on Question 1: Which customers will I serve?