Recode 2: Growth Recoded: Strategies and Markets, Agile and Accelerated

How do you develop a strategy in a world of relentless and uncertain change? Particularly one for growth, when so many familiar markets seem stagnant or in decline? How do you make sense of all this change, what is relevant to you?

Certainly, the old approach to incremental strategy development has given way to a much more creative and exploratory approach to business strategy, built around future casting, scenario planning, and agile roadmaps.

Growth used to be finite. Limited by the mental boundaries in which we saw are credibility – we were bounded by our finite description of the sector in which we operated, maybe geography too; we were bounded by doing what we were good at, and what our existing customers wanted.

Today, we live in a blur, a market matrix that sees the world as our oyster. The smallest business can embrace cloud technologies to have the widest reach, and indeed many of the world’s largest platform businesses are actually very small. While “average” growth might have stagnated, there are pockets of opportunity everywhere.

Markets are volatile and uncertain, winners rise and loser fall, competition intensifies and customer have a relentless desire for better. Of course biggest is not always best. Market share is rarely a measure of success today. Growth is typically found in profitable niches, where you can grow further, focused and faster.

The best organisations are exponential – they harness technology, but also new business and market models – physical and digital – to accelerate value creation. Think about how WhatsApp created $19bn value in just three years, Uber $60bn in 4 years, Amazon $950bn in 25 years. At the same time, its about ensuring that revenues and profitability follow the valuations.

Key questions that we will explore include:

  • Where are my best opportunities for future growth, in new sectors or new geographies?
  • How can I shape my market to my advantage, and brands to dominate my chosen spaces?
  • Why do networks deliver exponential growth, and how can they apply to me business?
  • How does a “growth mindset” enable a more agile approach to growth, and where do I start?
  • And what actually is “growth” – revenue, profit, value? – while delivering less negative, more positive “impact”?

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And also