Re-thinking where to compete and how to win is key to success. And it should not only be up to senior leaders who decide where the company should go.
Indeed, making good choices about where and how to compete requires a shared and firm understanding of market dynamics, core strengths and weaknesses and sources of competitive advantage.
To thrive in increasingly complex and uncertain environments, managers across all levels and functions should be comfortable using robust tools and structured processes to identify opportunities (external or internal) to secure growth.
Managing for growth can often pose a dilemma to businesses. In times of slow growth, companies seldom have extra resources to dedicate to new initiatives. Implementing competitive strategies often implies reallocating resources. This is, in many respects, the most difficult step in the process.
Several difficult – but critically important – decisions must be made. Only a thorough assessment of market attractiveness – size, growth, profitability, risk, barriers to entry, fit with company strategy – can guide the allocation of scarce financial and human resources to reach the desired growth. Although this is fairly easy to understand, growth strategies can prove extremely difficult to implement, for reasons such as complacency, lack of confidence, daily pressure, short term orientation, overwhelming product or technical focus, internal politics and silos.
Furthermore, the bigger you become, the harder it is to grow. Forging a growth mindset or culture is the accelerator. It takes discipline, rigorous analysis, relentless commitment and continual engagement to search for new opportunities where superior value can be delivered at a profit. A handful of individuals – no matter how talented they are – cannot take up the challenge on their own. Change must come from the whole organization.
Learn to dare is the slogan of one of the pre-eminent European business schools. StratX have pioneered this approach for thousands of leaders of best-in-class companies around the world. In our experiential learning initiatives, we enable leaders to embed a culture of sustainable profitable growth in their organizations. We help executives to be more effective. Leaders and their teams of managers from various functions gain extremely valuable experience - and thus confidence - in dealing with complex issues. They are thus able to make tough decisions in order to outperform competition in their core business or in lesser known areas with strong potential.
Participants experience by themselves and at no risk the relentless process of evaluating the attractiveness of existing or new activities. They go through the difficult process of allocating scarce resources to achieve results in a competitive environment in an immersive experience that they will remember for years. StratX builds these leaders’ confidence by enabling them to strive in complex environments.
In our simulations, like in real business life, growth is not an option: grow or go.
Learn more about how experiential learning can drive growth in your organization by downloading our experiential learning user's guide.
To know how your teams can experience our fully customized grow or go approach, e-mail Yann Cartier at yann.cartier@stratx.com
