"Whoever is noble wants to create new things and a new virtue, but whoever is good clings to old things and wants to keep them" Friedrich Nietzsche. Thus spoke Zarathustra.
The main argument presented is based on the development of a Comprehensive Model of skills and aptitudes for Commercial Teams and their Internal Support Units, this does not mean in any way that the rest of the organization's framework will be subject to the normal ups and downs of the dynamics labor and commercial of all the Companies, but to an idea as simple as deep, that we should not lose sight of: facing the clients, on all fronts, the entire Company sells.
It is not difficult to conclude that the entire Company, that is, the people who comprise it, are responsible in all aspects, not only for acquiring growth commitments, but for formulating, guiding, applying and evolving all the strategies, procedures and tasks that lead us to this growth, repeating everything that in practice has proven to be successful, and improving what under certain conditions did not even seem to work; I recommend that no idea or possibility be ruled out, that at one time it would not have worked does not mean that it will not if we modify the circumstances, after all, it is progress to know how it will not give results, now we must investigate how we will obtain them.
The experience in companies of all sizes worldwide clearly indicate to their executives to pursue growth through multiple paths of action. We can summarize these pathways into large groups:
1.- Analysis, updating - adaptation and maturity of the portfolio or growth in segmented markets based on specific portfolios.
2.- Economy and Growth.
3.- Defined marketing and advertising strategies (social networks and digital strategy)
4.- Market share gain (SOM) and Innovation.
5.- Workforce and job creation.
6.- Reputation and Brand Management.
Experience shows that companies that undertake perfectly well-defined actions simultaneously and significantly successfully in these groups grow faster and achieve better return margins than those that stagnate in only one or two of these groups - even when their management is extraordinary -.
During difficult times of global economic recession, the companies that have managed to sustain themselves best in turbulent times and applied the aforementioned groups to their global business strategy grew more rapidly.
The permanently competitive commercial contexts oblige Companies to define and redefine their growth ambitions, as well as setting extraordinary planning - management - monitoring of their sources of growth as goals, by examining how they have resulted and how they perform today in these; even more, how their results will improve from their combination. It is a fact that companies grow at higher rates when their offices and / processing plants are geographically in emerging markets, be they local, regional or global; more than in already developed economies or mature markets with closed circles of competitors.
It is evident that the percentage growth rates in both mature and emerging markets allow differentiating high growth in small companies that have small cost bases, which appears to be large and sustained growth, however, it is also evident that both large companies and small companies face the same challenges in shrinking markets.
The advantage of small companies over large corporations will always be flexibility and initial attractiveness, with good service plans and personalized contact, in these cases the growth is quickly expressed in market share gain as a growth measurement sensor. We can emphasize at this time, that the portfolio upgrade / maturation combination, accompanied by an excellent advertising and promotion strategy, will be more critical to the growth of large corporations than gaining market position; They usually hold significantly high market positions in reasonably mature markets.
In day-to-day results, these differences are not surprising. Small businesses usually grow faster than their own industries because they are not restricted by size, and their growth is based on new business models they can offer without fear of cannibalizing their own lines. However, we find here a lesson for large companies: study the actions of small companies and consider that they can serve as a management model for smaller divisions of their own and compare, not only in terms of products, but the mixtures in your growth management.
All productive groups, whether they offer finished products, for immediate consumption, intermediate parts with precise specifications, diverse maquilas, services and intangibles, require setting real expectations for cyclical growth in order to remain in force in the market in the short, medium and long term. We will not go into various models at this time to analyze the situation in which the Company finds itself for the application of diverse strategies, but we can insist that it is essential to know in a very concrete way the level at which it is located and to install Updating the status, so that the strategies have the expected effects, a good previous diagnosis is always necessary when prescribing successfully.
Personally, I consider that the analyzes of the personnel of a Company collected in the best possible way, will always be better than those of contracted external services, so that for a high cost, they tell us what we already knew but for various obvious reasons.
Practical exercises
1. Briefly define which growth strategies are applied globally, whether they have worked or not, ask your collaborators.
2. Divide your list into two groups to analyze separately those that have worked and those that have not
3. Ask your collaborators to analyze each group separately, describing why they worked and why not, in each case separate external and internal factors for a better analysis.
4. Once separated, choose among the successful strategies the most efficient in cost / benefit and consider how they can be improved and adapted to the evolution of the Company and its medium and long-term goals.
5. Of the less successful strategies, analyze why they did not work and whether it was due to external or internal factors, and whether a change in the context can make them work to include them in the first group.
6. What can be applied / evaluated / replicated immediately?
Share the agreements reached with the Leaders of each Department and consider the application of some of the strategies discussed above in a reasonable period of time to collect information and test them to formally install them with a program for monitoring and evaluating results.
Extract from the book "Outlining a new map for growth" edited by Editorial Académica Española 2012. www.morebooks.com (978-3-8484-6001-4). Copyright © 20122 by the author and LAP Lambert Academic Publishing GmbH & Co. KG and licensors. All rights reserved. Saarbrücken 2012.
