Strategic Landscape Assessment

Ongoing Growth Requires Assessing The Environ­ment Before Developing A Plan

If You Don’t Know The Environment Inside and Out—You Could Get Some Nasty Surprises

It’s no exaggeration to say that the business environment changes at warp speed. It’s common to create a strategy, and then circumstances quickly make the whole thing obsolete. You find yourself working a strategy that has become irrelevant. What seemed brilliant during the planning gets blown out of the water, along with your profitability. If you’re going to plan for growth, you need to dig deeply to assess possibilities before committing.

This Program Has Been Carefully Designed To Shine A Light On Growth Opportunities and…

To Ready Your Business To Create A Powerful and Effective Strategic Plan For Growth

You can’t get where you’re going without knowing where you’re going and how to get there. It’s the same with growth. There really are no shortcuts. There’s a map, there’s a process, but you have to go through every phase. You have to uncover the best opportunities to pursue before you put together your plan. Here are the specific problems this program solves.

• You can’t have a failsafe strategic plan for growth unless you absolutely know the environment. Without in-depth research and customer knowledge, you can’t make well-informed strategic decisions. It’s critical to examine everything that can have an impact on strategic choices. You must know what your customers’ needs are going to be and how you can be ready to meet those needs. Being fully informed requires in-depth scanning of the external and internal environments.
• You won’t pursue growth without a solid understanding of where growth and profit intersect. Growth goals must bring satisfactory profitability and returns to investors. Stop-gap measures that trade price for volume erode profitability. You need to have a clear picture of what growth and which initiatives are going to be profitable.
• Your growth is impacted by the unpredictable world outside the company. Unless you take the time to comprehend that world, you can be blindsided. If you aren’t looking ahead, you won’t know the best way to respond when surprised. Even worse, you will be surprised rather than simply observing an event that you had expected and planned for.
• Your company has a “Growth Gap”—there aren’t enough opportunities for desired growth. Your portfolio of growth opportunities, adjusted for probability of success, is not sufficient to get the company where you want it to be. This produces an over-reliance on existing products and services. Along with that come “heroic” campaigns to meet or exceed a company’s expectations for growth. Doing the same old things won’t bring you the desired growth.
• It seems too risky to target new products, customer segments or markets. You’ve no way to determine the likely success of these endeavors. It feels like playing the lottery. There are too many factors to consider and too many variables to track. When you think you’ve got a clear winner, there’s a shift in the environment, and risk increases. Fear and trepidation set in. Confidence vanishes and growth initiatives are set aside.

The Growth-On-Track℠ SCAN Program Illuminates Your Best Path To Predictable Growth

Here’s What Your Company Can Expect To Get From This Program

When you’re considering a program to help you grow your company, you want to know about expected outcomes. These are the results you can expect to get from the SCAN program.

• You’re positioned for predictable growth and ready to create a strategic plan to get you there. You’ve examined all opportunities, and eliminated the losers. You’re excited about knowing exactly how you’ll grow the company. There’s a real team energy going around the facilities and work force. It’s exciting to see, plan and design the future.
• You confidently grow because you have a solid understanding of profitable growth. You know what goals will bring satisfactory profitability and returns to investors. Stop-gap measures that trade price for volume are a thing of the past. With a clear picture of what growth and which initiatives are going to be profitable, you’re ready to create the strategic plan.
• You’re prepared in advance for ways an unpredictable world might impact growth. With a new assurance about that world, you’re prepared. You know the best ways to respond, and have planned for surprising contingencies. You have a lot of confidence that all or almost everything foreseeable has been considered.
• Your company no longer has a “Growth Gap”—there’s a process to pursue selected growth opportunities. You’ve looked over the portfolio and adjusted for probability of success. There’s new vigor in the company as a result of planning for growth. You’ve put to rest the old ways that demanded heroic efforts for growth by doing the same old things. You’re ready for new products and services.
• You’ve minimized the risk in targeting new products, customer segments or markets. Through a thorough, in-depth process, you’ve determined the likely success of growth initiatives. You’ve considered many factors and variables. You have a plan with clear winners for the future. Confidence has replaced fear and trepidation. You’re ready to go forward and grow the company.

There Are Many Benefits To This Program

This program is packed with benefits and has been designed to surface your best growth initiatives. Let’s look at what you can expect to get from this program.

• The program is designed for top executives and their leadership teams to map a path to profitable growth. You get the benefit of decades of expertise on achieving profitable growth. We’ve learned what works and what doesn’t work. Our toolbox is crammed with the best, most efficient processes to assess opportunity. We know you’re busy and want results. We’ve designed this program with that in mind.
• This program is designed so that—at the end—your team owns the work and the results. We work with you in the true spirit of “action-learning”. What that means is that we engage leadership, middle-managers and subject matter experts directly in the work. As a result, all team members develop a shared, intuitive understanding of the strategic situation, decisions and path forward. You don’t end up working “top down”.
• Your organization can sustain the process once the project is complete. The frameworks, methods and tools become integrated into your company. You end up with a sustainable, internal process for managing growth.

The Growth-On-Track℠ SCAN Program Is Designed For Mid-Sized Businesses ($50 Million-$2 Billion)

Here’s How The Program Develops A Systematic Way For You To Assess Growth Opportunities

Firms this size face the same complexities and pressures for growth as much larger firms in their industries. Diverse markets, products, and channels complicate growth once a company hits a certain size.

The Growth On Track SCAN Program is a comprehensive system to determine your best growth opportunities. It integrates elements of competitive intelligence, strategic planning, and competitive positioning analysis. In addition, customer-focused innovation and strategic business development drive the process.

Our work is highly customized to your business. This is not a “one size fits all” program. In general, following are the activities that comprise this Growth On Track SCAN program. Times are estimated and, in practice are adjusted to fit your needs. The actual program is customized to fit your business.

The SCAN Program Has Four Distinct Phases

Phase I: SCAN Starts With An Extensive External SCAN Of Factors That Can Affect Your Growth

Before you can set a path to growth, you need to know your environment. It might seem unnecessary to spend a lot of time on this, but it’s critical to examine. Typical work environments don’t provide either a time or a forum for such examination. This external scan is devoted to taking a fresh look at your outside environment.

• The project starts with strategic assessment of the external environment. We’re looking broadly to assess anything that could impact growth for the enterprise. First, we examine trends or discontinuities (something brand new with the potential to dramatically change the landscape). We study what’s happening with consumers in the marketplace, and the effects of new products and technologies. What global factors are driving prices and what logistics are forcing change? What regulatory changes are on the horizon?
• Next, we look at your industry, your markets, and your competitors. What’s going on in the industry that can impact future growth? What market segments could be the fastest way to growth? Who do you consider to be your competitors, and what strategies are they using? What are your competitors investing in? How can changes in channels of distribution affect your business?

Phase II: SCAN Continues With A Deep Assessment of The Internal Environment For Growth

After looking externally, we look inside the company. It’s important to honestly assess the internal environment as you prepare for a new growth plan.

• What are your strategic advantages that competitors can’t match? We look at your internal capabilities and core competencies, those strengths where you have no competition.
• Then, we examine any areas where weaknesses may need to be shored up. It’s critical to honestly assess what needs to be changed and decide what weaknesses are unimportant to improving growth.

Phase III: SCAN Creates A Portfolio Of Growth Possibilities and Alternative Scenarios For The Future

In this phase, we get into the meaty and fun part of the process. Juices are flowing and we get glimpses of the future. The team is humming along and great ideas get people excited.

• We create, and then examine a fat portfolio of potential growth opportunities. Examining competitors, trends, markets and channels generates a lot of possibilities. As we examine internal and external factors, we build a big list of growth ideas. Next, we dig into that list of potential ways to grow. and do preliminary assessments. We’re asking questions like, “How big of an opportunity is this?” and “Do we have a strength in this area?” and “How well does it fit with what we do?” and “Does it fit with our current customer base?”
• We create and assess alternative scenarios for the future. As an antidote to linear thinking and “group think”, we dig into alternative future scenarios. It’s important to get real about assumptions and explore where they might not necessarily be true. Just because “everybody” believes a trend is significant doesn’t mean it should drive the strategic plan. We look for any implications for your products, markets, and channels. We decide on any small investments that would protect the company from unexpected change.

Phase IV: SCAN Visually Maps The Market, Supply Chain, Competitors and Competitive Positioning

In this phase, we picture everything we’ve talked about so far. Rather than just words, we get to see how all the elements connect and interact. These visual processes are important to surface any additional considerations.

• Next, we work out what I call the Go-To-Market Map. During this process, we facilitate the analysis and mapping of key markets, segments, customers, and distribution channels. This visual mapping process lays out all elements to show the big picture. We document a set of agreed-upon assumptions. We picture strengths and weaknesses to get commonality. We end up with a clear picture of who the customers are, what segments overlap, and where the competitors are playing.
• We create a visual Supply Chain Map. It’s easy to get into trouble making assumptions about your supply channels. By seeing it visually and in depth, inefficiencies and vulnerabilities become obvious. We look at the full supply chain: how you get your critical products, supplies, power, and raw materials. We recognize and discuss possible changes.
• We visually map competitors and competitive positioning. In a mature industry, a lot of competitors are offering the same features, components, and price. This mapping process helps differentiate where you are, and suggests how you might move your competitive position. We look for what distinguishes your products as superior to competitors’ products. Likewise, we examine attributes that put competitors’ products ahead of yours.

Invitation to a Conversation

If you’ve read this far, and you think you might be interested in the program. I invite you to contact me for a complementary Growth-On-Track Strategy Session. This is a no-obligation way to find out more about the program and whether it’s right for you.

During this session we explore the challenges you and your top team are facing. We look at what kind of results you’d like to have instead. If we seem to be a match, I’ll describe how the Growth-On-Track program might help your company achieve desired growth. Whatever the outcome, I believe you’ll gain some fresh perspective about the issues you’re facing.

The session takes about an hour and can be done in person or by phone. Click here to book your Growth-on-Track Strategy Session. I look forward to the opportunity to discuss your business growth.

Where To Next?

Now that you understand how this service works, you may want to review our PLAN Program to see the next step in your Strategic Growth process.