
13
The Four Colors of Business Growth
© Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
2011
Man is not the sum of what he has but the totality of
what he does not yet have, of what he might have.
– Jean-Paul Sartre
Under CEO Richard Mahoney, Monsanto transformed itself from an
industrial chemicals rm into a knowledge-driven life-sciences rm
that focuses on biotechnology. Chemicals were viewed as a commod-
ity and thus these businesses were divested. This repositioning eventu-
ally led to good growth for the company. By contrast, Asahi Kasei, a
Japanese rm focused on building a portfolio of diversied chemical
products, has created ...