The New Growth Playbook … from growth loops and market making to invisible multipliers and culture coding … how to supercharge growth in a changing world
September 3, 2025
In a world of frenetic change, many companies find it difficult to find new growth.
Global markets are typically growing at around 2-3% (according to IMF for 2025-26). Most developed markets are largely stagnant. India tops the developing markets, with 7% growth. But these are averages. Go inside most companies, and they have ambitions to grow at 10% even 20%. So they have to think differently.
The companies shaping tomorrow are those unafraid to stretch, to reimagine strategy itself, and to embrace emerging models of growth that transcend boundaries and industries.
Instead of trying to sell more of the same – seeking to scale conventional markets, and get more from tired audiences – they look at future growth differently, new spaces, and new approaches.
- Nubank in Brazil reinventing finance to target the unbanked with simplicity and accessibility.
- On Running leveraging culture, design, and community to grow into a global sports brand.
- DeepMind applying AI to protein folding, unlocking trillion-dollar opportunities in medicine.
- Rocket Lab lowering the cost of access to space, redefining an entire industry.
These signals are not isolated—they’re fragments of the next economy taking shape. These companies don’t just compete harder, they create new markets, and play a different game.
What are the best growth strategies?
The world’s fastest growing bank, Nubank from Brazil, uses social inclusion as a growth engine, targeting the unbanked. LVMH demonstrates the power of orchestrated ecosystems. Shopify shows how empowering others creates compounding growth. Crocs shows the value of cultural resonance. BYD exemplifies bold reinvention. Unilever anchors growth in purpose, On in circularity, DBS in ecosystems, and IKEA in localisation.
Growth strategies used to be simple and predictable – inspired by Igor Ansoff’s simple matrix of options – expand geographically, capture market share, and acquire rivals – sell more.
But in today’s volatile world, defined by digital disruption, shifting consumer values, climate imperatives, and geopolitical uncertainty, growth has become less about scale at all costs and more about reinvention.
The next generation of growth is built on agility, purpose, and innovation. Companies are not just selling more products to more people; they are creating self-reinforcing growth systems, tailoring experiences to micro-markets, leveraging ecosystems, and aligning with deeper human aspirations.
It’s also about value creation. Look across every sector – the biggest selling brands are rarely the most valuable – Volkswagen generates 4 times more revenue than Tesla, but Tesla’s market cap is 20 times bigger. Pepsico is twice as big as Coca Cola, but Coca Cola twice as valuable as Pepsico.
Growth is not simply about selling more, or being bigger. It needs to deliver economic value. Which it means to be growth that is profitable, progressive and will proliferate into the future.
So what are the best next-generation ideas for strategy and growth? Here are 10 ideas. These are not yet perfect frameworks; they are stretching visions of how the most innovative business may evolve in the decade ahead.
1. Growth loops, self-perpetuating growth
Traditional business models imagined growth as linear: invest in marketing, capture customers, sell more, and scale. But the most dynamic companies today are embracing growth loops.
In these models, every new customer contributes to further growth—through data, referrals, or network effects. Shopify, for example, has built a flywheel where each new merchant not only brings revenue but also strengthens its ecosystem of apps, payments, and logistics. That, in turn, attracts more developers and partners, creating a compounding cycle of growth.
Similarly, Nubank, the Brazilian digital bank, thrives on referrals. Its low-cost, mobile-first offering appeals to millions excluded by traditional banks. Every satisfied customer brings in others, creating viral momentum. Within a decade, Nubank became one of the world’s largest fintechs, serving over 100 million customers across Latin America. These growth loops are less about linear expansion and more about building self-perpetuating systems.
Spotify thrives on loops: more listeners attract more artists, creating better playlists, which attract more listeners. Revolut applies this logic to fintech: each product (cards, crypto, savings) feeds data into better recommendations and higher cross-sell.
Quantum growth loops take this further, creating self-reinforcing flywheels across industries. Imagine healthcare ecosystems where patient data fuels AI diagnostics, improving treatments, which attract more patients, generating more data. The loop compounds, accelerating both growth and innovation.
Strategy in this model is less about planning and more about accelerating loops.
2. Market making, not market sharing
Instead of competing for slices of existing demand, leaders create entirely new market spaces. BYD moved from batteries into electric vehicles, then into SkyRail, inventing new categories of urban mobility. Strategy shifts from positioning against rivals to naming and shaping whole industries.
Traditional strategy begins with industry analysis; next-generation strategy begins with customer worlds. Companies now create markets that previously did not exist, building categories shaped more by aspirations and experiences than by product lines.
Red Bull exemplified this with energy drinks, crafting a lifestyle category defined by extreme sports and adrenaline culture. More recently, Grab in Southeast Asia created the “super-app” category, integrating ride-hailing, payments, food, and finance into a daily-life platform. In Africa, M-Pesa pioneered mobile money, not by competing with banks but by creating an entirely new financial infrastructure. The lesson: growth comes from market-making, not market share.
Looking ahead, speculative opportunities abound: healthcare may blend into wellness and performance, powered by AI coaches; urban mobility may fuse housing, micro-mobility, and entertainment into seamless living systems. Companies that see life-activities, not industries, will shape the growth markets of tomorrow.
3. Culture coding, tapping into emerging ideas
The next advantage may not come from technology but from decoding culture—tapping into emerging values, aesthetics, and identities. Strategy is less about product-market fit than movement-market fit — scaling by mobilising tribes around ideas, memes, and values.
Liquid Death turned canned water into a $1B lifestyle brand by hacking into metal culture, absurd humor, and sustainability. Netflix scales globally by producing hyper-local cultural content—from Korean dramas to Spanish thrillers—that resonate far beyond their origins. In India, Byju’s educational platform grew by blending global tech with local parental aspirations.
Future growth may come from breaking hidden codes: designing products for neurodiverse communities; embedding indigenous knowledge into climate solutions; crafting services that speak to generational shifts in identity and belonging. Strategy becomes cultural semiotics as much as economics.
4. Regenerative growth, not extractive growth
The growth frontier is not consuming more resources but restoring and regenerating them. Growth strategies will focus on adding back more than they take.
Sustainability is no longer sufficient. The next step is regenerative growth, where businesses actively restore ecosystems, communities, and trust. This is not CSR or offsetting; it is strategy that aligns value creation with planetary renewal.
NextEra Energy in the USA reinvented itself from fossil-heavy Florida Power & Light into the world’s largest producer of wind and solar energy, scaling renewables profitably while reshaping its growth logic. Interface, the flooring company, moved from reducing impact to regenerative design, creating carpets that clean the air and contribute to biodiversity.
The emerging frontier lies in regenerative supply chains: Hermès experimenting with mushroom-based leather; Nestlé investing in regenerative agriculture; and startups like Climeworks scaling carbon removal. The companies that integrate regeneration into their core models will earn advantage not just in reputation but in resource resilience and regulatory alignment.
5. Orchestrating ecosystems, not going alone
The most valuable companies of the last decade—Apple, No company can do everything itself. Growth increasingly comes from ecosystem orchestration—building platforms and partnerships that multiply value creation.
The most valuable companies of the last decade—Apple, Amazon, Alibaba—are not single businesses but ecosystems. Yet the next generation of ecosystems will be more fluid, decentralized, and participatory.
LVMH, for example, has turned its portfolio of luxury maisons into a growth engine that’s greater than the sum of its parts. Each brand, from Louis Vuitton to Dior to Sephora, benefits from shared knowledge, cross-brand collaborations, and group-level investments in sustainability and digital innovation. By curating an ecosystem rather than simply owning brands, LVMH ensures that success in one area fuels momentum in others.
In Asia, DBS Bank has gone beyond financial services to create an ecosystem around daily life. From digital health tools to travel platforms to sustainable living guides, DBS positions itself as a trusted partner in broader life journeys, not just banking. This ecosystem approach deepens relationships and opens new revenue streams in unexpected places.
Revolut used partnerships and APIs to expand rapidly across banking, trading, insurance, and travel without owning traditional infrastructure.
Future ecosystems may look more like biological systems—open, adaptive, with porous boundaries. Imagine city-level ecosystems where transport, healthcare, food, and finance are interconnected through shared data platforms, with citizens co-creating value. Strategy shifts from “owning the customer” to orchestrating flows of trust, data, and participation.
Future growth will come from hijacking underutilized networks — from logistics to identity systems — and redirecting them to new markets. Instead of building everything themselves, companies hack into existing ecosystems and reverse-expand.
6. Micro localization, being different for everyone
Globalization once meant scale and standardization; the new frontier is hyper-local relevance delivered globally. Micro-localization is the ability to adapt products, services, and strategies to the nuances of neighbourhoods, cultures, and individuals—while retaining the advantages of global scale.
Take IKEA. Once famous for its one-size-fits-all flat-pack furniture, IKEA is reinventing itself as a brand that flexes to local contexts. In Tokyo, it sells compact furniture tailored to tiny apartments. In India, it offers traditional Indian meals alongside Swedish meatballs in its in-store restaurants. And increasingly, it’s experimenting with small-format city stores and digital-first models to meet urban consumers where they are.
Crocs offers another surprising example. Written off as a fad a decade ago, the brand has rebounded by leaning into local subcultures and social media trends. Its limited-edition collaborations—from K-pop bands in Korea to luxury designers in Paris—speak directly to niche communities, creating demand spikes that ripple globally. Growth is no longer about mass standardisation but about intimacy at scale.
Coca-Cola has long practiced this, adjusting flavors and marketing to local tastes. But new players are pushing further. TikTok’s algorithm personalizes content not only to countries but to micro-communities and even individuals. Jumia in Africa adapts e-commerce to local infrastructure gaps, offering pay-on-delivery and motorbike logistics.
Speculatively, AI-powered manufacturing could enable “glocal factories” producing customized goods for each city block, while retail experiences could morph daily based on real-time community data. Growth will not come from one-size-fits-all but from billions of micro-fits scaled intelligently.
7. Experience multiverses, immersive brands and communities
Products and services are no longer enough; companies now compete in experience universes. The next step is multi-layered experiences blending physical, digital, and virtual dimensions.
Disney reinvented itself multiple times—from animation to theme parks to streaming—each time amplifying its storytelling ecosystem. Nike’s digital platforms like SNKRS and Run Club transform the brand from a product company into a participatory culture. Hermès thrives not just on luxury goods but on immersive experiences that embody scarcity, craftsmanship, and cultural symbolism.
Tomorrow’s growth may come from “experience multiverses”—a luxury fashion brand offering physical goods, virtual garments for avatars, and AI-personalized design experiences. Companies that orchestrate these multiverses, blending identity, status, and emotion across realities, will define the next growth frontier.
8. Invisible multipliers, unlocking intangible assets
The most valuable assets in business today are no longer factories, fleets, or physical inventories. Instead, they are intangible and often invisible—brands, data, trust, and partnerships. These forces now account for the majority of corporate value creation, shaping how companies grow, compete, and endure.
A strong brand is more than a logo or slogan; it is a living promise that commands loyalty and price premiums. Apple and Nike are worth far more than the sum of their products because their brands embody meaning, aspiration, and belonging. Hermès’ value lies less in bags and more in the aura of scarcity, heritage, and cultural capital.
Data is the new capital of the digital age. The ability to capture, analyze, and act on information enables companies like Alibaba, Netflix, and Moderna to anticipate needs, personalize experiences, and accelerate discovery. Yet data only becomes valuable when translated into insight and action.
Trust is the ultimate currency. In a world of information overload and rising skepticism, organizations that demonstrate authenticity, responsibility, and fairness win enduring advantage. Tesla’s volatility shows how fragile trust can be, while Patagonia’s long-term commitment to environmental integrity shows how powerful it can become.
Partnerships enable ecosystems that extend growth beyond the boundaries of one company. Amazon, Tencent, and Reliance are not just businesses; they are platforms that orchestrate networks of partners, developers, and customers, multiplying value through shared creation. ASML, the Dutch semiconductor company, thrives not on physical machines alone but on an irreplaceable ecosystem of patents, know-how, and collaborative trust.
The next growth frontier lies in mastering these invisible drivers—cultivating brands that inspire, data that empowers, trust that endures, and ecosystems that scale. Those who do will define the economy of the future.
Speculatively, companies may trade in new intangibles: “trust tokens” for AI systems, data sovereignty as a service, or cultural capital as measurable value on balance sheets. Strategy in this age is less about factories and more about curating, scaling, and protecting the invisible.
9. Temporal strategies, competing at different speeds
Companies can accelerate growth by exploiting differences in time horizons — moving faster or slower than competitors and markets expect. Strategy becomes time design — mastering how value unfolds across seconds, years, and generations.
Growth strategies have traditionally been linear—quarterly targets, five-year plans. Next-gen strategies manipulate time itself: accelerating, slowing, or bending growth trajectories to shape competitive advantage.
Amazon is a master of long-term patience, sacrificing near-term profits to build infrastructures like AWS or Prime that compound over decades. Conversely, fast-fashion brands like Temu and Shein compress design-to-delivery cycles to mere days, weaponizing speed as a strategic advantage.
Speculatively, companies may offer “time as a service”: insurance models that protect not just assets but lifespans; education platforms that accelerate or extend learning windows. Growth becomes not just about market share but about controlling the tempo of industries.
10. Real-time strategy, enabled by AI
Strategy becomes less about annual plans and more about real-time algorithmic adaptation. Alibaba’s “City Brain” dynamically optimizes traffic flows in Hangzhou with AI — imagine the same principle applied to corporate strategy. The company’s strategy evolves autonomously, recombining assets as markets change, like a biological system.
Where companies once used AI as a tool, the next wave builds AI into the strategy-making process itself. “AI-native” strategy means dynamic, self-learning models of decision-making where foresight, simulation, and adaptation are embedded in real time.
Ping An in China is an early mover: it uses AI across health, finance, and insurance ecosystems, not only to improve customer service but to decide where to expand next. Mercado Libre in Latin America deploys AI to optimize logistics, credit scoring, and product recommendations at planetary scale. These companies do not bolt AI onto existing strategies; their strategies evolve through AI.
Imagine a future boardroom where strategy sessions run as human-AI collaborations: executives asking questions, AI generating multiple possible scenarios, simulating competitor moves, even stress-testing supply chains under climate shocks. Strategy becomes less about annual reviews and more about living, evolving code.
From strategy to imagination
These 10 ideas signal a shift: from strategy as analysis to strategy as imagination.
Companies that win will be those that reinvent not only what they do but how they think about growth itself—market-making, AI-native decision-making, regenerative advantage, living ecosystems, micro-localization, experience multiverses, temporal play, quantum loops, cultural decoding, and unlocking new assets.
The signals are already here – from DBS in Singapore to Hermès in Paris, from Mercado Libre in São Paulo to NextEra in Florida. Yet the most exciting frontier is still speculative: how these logics will collide, recombine, and accelerate in ways.
The next generation of growth is not about bigger, faster, cheaper. It’s about different.
It is about organisations that reinvent perpetually, design for exponential technologies, and embrace regenerative principles. It is about orchestrating ecosystems, shaping cultural currents, and inventing markets that never existed. It is about moving across time horizons with agility and, above all, growing humanity and the planet alongside profit.
If the 20th century was the era of scale, the 21st is the era of reinvention and imagination. Tomorrow’s growth will not come to those who plan the best—it will come to those who see the furthest, adapt the fastest, and dare the boldest.
Footnote: Growth inspirations
Here are 9 mini cases of brands driving growth:
Shopify … Powering the Entrepreneur Economy
Shopify has become the backbone of a new generation of entrepreneurs and small businesses by making e-commerce simple, scalable, and global. Rather than competing as a retailer itself, Shopify built a platform model that gives millions of merchants the tools to sell online, manage payments, ship products, and market to customers. Its strategy has been to constantly expand the ecosystem—adding integrations with social platforms like TikTok, partnerships with logistics providers, and AI-driven marketing tools. By enabling others to grow, Shopify grows too, capturing value as digital commerce expands across geographies and categories. During the pandemic, Shopify accelerated adoption as small retailers rushed online, but its growth engine is longer term: empowering entrepreneurship, tapping into the long tail of niche markets, and expanding into financial services. Its model shows how a company can scale by democratizing access to technology and capturing the collective growth of its customers.
Nubank … Redefining Banking in Latin America
Brazil-based Nubank has grown into one of the world’s largest digital banks by challenging the inefficiencies and high fees of traditional Latin American banks. Starting with a simple no-fee credit card managed through a sleek app, Nubank attracted millions of young, underserved customers frustrated with legacy banking. Its growth strategy is built on simplicity, transparency, and customer trust. By expanding into savings, personal loans, and small business services, Nubank has created a financial super-app that addresses the unmet needs of over 100 million people across Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia. Crucially, it uses data and AI to underwrite credit for populations often excluded from banking. Its low-cost, digital-only model allows scale without physical branches, while network effects drive customer acquisition through referrals. Nubank’s growth proves that reinventing business models for emerging markets can unlock both social impact and extraordinary commercial opportunity.
LVMH … Reinventing Luxury for a New Era
LVMH, the world’s largest luxury group, accelerates growth not by chasing trends but by shaping them. Its strategy blends heritage with reinvention, using its maisons—from Louis Vuitton to Dior to Tiffany—to continually refresh desirability. Under Bernard Arnault, LVMH has invested heavily in experiences, from flagship stores that serve as cultural spaces to immersive brand activations with artists and designers. It has expanded into high-growth categories like beauty and hospitality, while also betting on technology—acquiring digital-native brands, experimenting with NFTs, and driving e-commerce through platforms like Sephora. LVMH has also leaned into sustainability, repositioning luxury as timeless and regenerative, appealing to new generations of consumers who equate value with responsibility. By managing a portfolio of brands with creative independence but shared resources, LVMH captures both scale and scarcity. Its growth comes from a powerful cycle: cultural relevance creates desire, and desire creates long-term pricing power.
Crocs … From Ugly Duckling to Fashion Phenomenon
Once mocked as unfashionable, Crocs has staged one of the most remarkable brand turnarounds of recent years. Its growth strategy is built on radical reinvention—turning its clunky foam clogs into a canvas for self-expression and cultural play. Through collaborations with fashion houses like Balenciaga, musicians like Post Malone, and influencers across TikTok, Crocs repositioned its brand as cool, ironic, and endlessly customizable. The introduction of Jibbitz charms transformed shoes into personal statements, driving repeat purchases and community engagement. Operationally, Crocs has streamlined its product line, focused on direct-to-consumer sales, and used social listening to anticipate trends in real time. The result: a brand once written off has become a global growth engine, doubling revenues and capturing a new generation of fans. Crocs shows how even the most unfashionable company can accelerate growth by leaning into cultural currents, embracing partnerships, and making its brand a platform for creativity.
BYD … Driving the Global EV Transition
China’s BYD (Build Your Dreams) has grown from a battery maker into one of the world’s largest electric vehicle producers, rivaling Tesla. Its growth strategy is rooted in vertical integration—BYD makes its own batteries, chips, and key components, giving it cost and supply chain advantages. This allows it to offer a wide range of affordable EVs and hybrids, making clean mobility accessible to the mass market, not just premium buyers. BYD is also expanding aggressively into buses, trucks, and global markets, from Europe to Southeast Asia. Backed by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, BYD has leveraged scale and technology to accelerate adoption of EVs worldwide. By focusing on affordability, range, and reliability, BYD captures segments often ignored by Western competitors. Its growth demonstrates how emerging-market champions can leapfrog by aligning with megatrends like electrification, while rethinking value chains to gain speed, resilience, and market dominance.
On … Making Sportswear Cool
Swiss sports brand On has accelerated growth by reinventing running shoes with its distinctive “CloudTec” cushioning technology, making performance both functional and stylish. Its early adoption by elite athletes, combined with partnerships with fashion retailers, positioned On at the intersection of sport and lifestyle. Growth has been fueled by a strong direct-to-consumer model, global expansion, and a community-driven marketing strategy that emphasizes storytelling around innovation and sustainability. On has also pioneered circular business models, such as a subscription service for recyclable running shoes, appealing to environmentally conscious consumers. Its IPO in New York validated its status as a global challenger to Nike and Adidas, with revenues soaring. By blending Swiss engineering, design flair, and digital-first engagement, On demonstrates how a challenger brand can accelerate growth by creating a differentiated product experience and expanding into adjacent markets like apparel and outdoor gear.
DBS Bank … From Traditional to Digital Powerhouse
Singapore’s DBS has transformed itself from a bureaucratic state bank into one of the world’s most innovative financial institutions. Its growth strategy is built on digital transformation—not as a bolt-on, but as a complete cultural reinvention. DBS embraced agile methods, customer journey redesign, and AI-driven services, branding itself as the “Digital Bank of Singapore.” It launched digibank, a mobile-only offering in India and Indonesia, acquiring millions of new customers at low cost. The bank also integrated sustainability into its growth, financing renewable energy projects and helping clients transition to greener operations. By rethinking itself as a tech company with a banking license, DBS boosted profitability, customer satisfaction, and international reach. Its story illustrates how even incumbents in highly regulated industries can accelerate growth by reimagining their culture, customer experience, and business model around digital-first principles.
IKEA … Democratising Sustainable Living
IKEA has accelerated growth by making sustainable living affordable and aspirational. The Swedish retailer is rethinking its entire model—from using renewable materials and circular design to offering services like furniture rental and buyback. It has invested in renewable energy, owning wind and solar farms to power its stores and supply chain. At the same time, IKEA has doubled down on digital, expanding e-commerce, experimenting with virtual showrooms, and partnering with platforms like Alibaba. Its growth is also geographic, with rapid expansion into India and Southeast Asia. IKEA’s strength lies in its ability to democratize design and now sustainability, positioning itself as the brand that helps millions of households live better within planetary boundaries. By aligning growth with purpose, and innovating across product, service, and market models, IKEA shows how legacy retailers can accelerate into the future without losing their core identity.
Unilever … Purpose and Performance at Scale
Unilever has pursued growth by embedding sustainability into its business model. Its “Sustainable Living Brands”—such as Dove, Hellmann’s, and Ben & Jerry’s—grow faster than the rest of its portfolio, proving that purpose can drive performance. Unilever has focused on reducing plastic, cutting carbon, and reshaping food portfolios around plant-based products, while also leading in social issues from diversity to hygiene access. Its growth strategy is to meet shifting consumer values while using its global scale to accelerate systemic change. Investments in AI-driven marketing, direct-to-consumer platforms, and partnerships with startups also keep it relevant with new generations of shoppers. By aligning profit with positive impact, Unilever has repositioned itself as a growth company fit for the 21st century—winning not only consumers but also employees, investors, and regulators. The company’s example shows how legacy players can accelerate growth by making purpose inseparable from their brand and innovation strategy.
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