Strategic Market Management, 10th Edition

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Energizing the Business

Only the paranoid survive.

—Andrew Grove, Former CEO, Intel

One never notices what has been done, one can only see what remains to be done.

—Marie Curie

Where there is no wind, row.

—Portuguese proverb

Businesses need growth and not only for financial reasons. Certainly, shareholders, employees, and partners look to enhance sales and profits. However, growth also introduces vitality to an organization by providing challenges and rewards. An organization that cannot improve and grow may not even be viable. Further, improving performance by cutting costs and downsizing risks the morale of the employees and partners as well as cutting the muscle needed to create and support growth opportunities.

There are four ways to grow a business, as suggested by Figure 11.1. The first, covered in Chapter 12, is about leveraging the current business. That can mean taking the existing products into new markets, finding new products or services for the existing customer base, or leveraging assets such as brand equity or competencies such as managing the supermarket channel. The second, introduced in Chapter 13, involves creating a new business based on finding a white space in the market or by transformational innovation, a business for which a substantial competitive advantage will exist and persist. The third, presented in Chapter 14, entails going global, leveraging the business into new countries to create a broader market or creating new or improved assets ...