Professional Documents
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Designing Growth Strategies - Anil Gupta
Designing Growth Strategies - Anil Gupta
Designing Growth Strategies - Anil Gupta
Kelby Schwender
Dr. Plummer
BA 422W- Strategic Business Planning
Sustainable Growth
● Pursuing growth in a company is imperative
● Not pursuing growth in a company may yield one of the
two outcomes.
○ A sale of the company to another parent, or eventually
decline and debt.
● There are four reasons as to why a company should pursue
growth
1. “When your competitors are growing but you are
The growth imperative not then your company is losing market share.”
2. “No growth means the company cannot attract or
retain top talent.”
3. “Pursuing growth can stand as a ‘powerful trigger’
for both the innovation and efficiency of a
company.”
4. “Growth is one of the key drivers of the market
value of a companies shares.”
Reasons to Grow
1. Gain and maintain market share
2. Attract and retain top talent
3. Boost innovation and efficiency
4. Drive Value
● Sustaining growth is brutally hard for companies
○ Limits to market dominance make it hard for
businesses to sustain historical growth rates
○ When company’s try maintaining their cultural
strength it eventually gets in the way of sustaining
Sum up
“Other than small family-run businesses, every company
faces the imperatives to grow. Yet it is extremely hard to
sustain profitable growth on an ongoing basis.”
● Unbundling, in this circumstance, is defined as the
unpacking of the bundle of tangible and intangible
strengths that account for and in the company’s success in
the current business and picking a subset of these strengths
to carry over to the new line of business
Disaggregating and ● Rebundling, in this circumstance, is defined as the
assembling of a complete bundle of tangible and
potential opportunities ●
the business into new marketplaces
When a company decides to build on their ideas
from existing core strengths this will present
excellent opportunities for profitable growth
Sum up
It is not a good idea to engage in random brainstorming when
generating options for future growth. Brainstorming should be
guided by the two dimensional framework. This approach
reduces the risk of overlooking potentially good opportunities,
while preventing corporate leaders from distraction by red
herrings.
● For companies to have better profitable growth they
should consider building on their existing customer
relationships
● Companies should consider how to expand their
portfolio of products and services that are offered to
their current customers
Using assessment ●
customer segments
Companies should never try diversifying multiple pathways at
the same time
screens to choose the ● Anil Gupta states that there are three assessment screens to
evaluate potential options for new growth
or partner ○
○
Companies can use strategic alliances
Companies can build their capabilities from the
ground up
Reminders
● Building capabilities from the ground up requires larger capital
● Because strategic alliances require ongoing collaboration between
two or more independent companies whether or not an alliance
succeeded depends also on several other factors, such as choice of
alliance partners, the governing structure through which the alliance
will be managed, agreements regarding the roles and
responsibilities of alliance partners, and early investment in
building trust among the alliance partners.
● Acquisitions are one of the three mechanisms in which a
company may fill the capability gaps when deciding how
to enter a new market space and grow the business
Growing through ● With acquisitions, companies need to watch out for two
particular, potential pitfalls
acquisitions ○ Avoid the overpaying for bigger and better
acquisition
○ Manage the post-merger integration well
● Companies need to let their strategic logic drive the
decisions rather than their ego
Organizing for Growth
● When creating a culture of growth in a company it is important
to start out by making sure “the key performance indicators
that drive performance assessments for senior executives and
business unit heads include expectations regarding growth,
growth in market share, in revenues, and in earnings”
● It is highly important for a company to create a culture that
Leading for growth preference for incremental innovations, and for driving
efficiencies within existing businesses”
● It is important that leaders of a company are well-rounded in
understanding each part of the business. It is important that the
leaders (senior leaders) are up-to-date with what is happening in
each department of the company
● Having a good mix of leadership in a company, good/dedicated
employees, and having all employees (workers and leaders) being
up-to-date will help keep the innovation in the organization
Sum up
Those who sit at the apex of the organization have an outsized impact on
whether or not the company is able to grow profitably on a sustained basis.
They have the power to select key personnel, to establish incentive
systems, and to allocate resources. It matters who they are, how they spend
their time, and the signals sent by their statements and behavior.