What is growth opportunity strategy?
Most companies can name more opportunities than they can pursue. Growth opportunity strategy is how you decide which ones deserve the next year of attention.
What is growth opportunity strategy?
Growth opportunity strategy is the work of deciding which new markets, customers or offerings are worth pursuing, and in what order. It weighs the size of each opportunity against the evidence that buyers will act on it, and against what the organization can realistically take on.
How is it different from market sizing?
Market sizing counts the organizations that could benefit from what you sell. That tells you relatively little about their readiness to buy. Opportunity strategy asks a narrower question: where is someone already able to own the decision, fund it, and fit the solution into the way they work? That group is usually much smaller, and much more commercially productive.
What does the work involve?
Four connected pieces of work.
- Map where demand is forming: which industries, segments or workflows are moving first.
- Test the evidence before committing spend: what buyers do, not only what they say.
- Compare each opportunity with what the organization can absorb: people, attention and operating capacity.
- Sequence two or three opportunities, and decide what to stop or delay to make room for them.
How do you choose between good opportunities?
Ask what each one requires as well as what it promises. Growth initiatives compete for the same people, customers and attention, so an attractive opportunity can still reduce the value of work already underway.
- Can the organization deliver it without degrading existing performance?
- Does it make the value proposition clearer or more complicated?
- Has the previous initiative had enough time to produce reliable evidence?
- Which existing commitments will get less attention as a result?
What people ask
When do companies need growth opportunity strategy?
Usually when growth slows in the core market, when a new technology opens options the company has not priced, or when there are more promising ideas than capacity to pursue them.
Is it the same as market research?
Research is one input. Opportunity strategy combines research with commercial judgment about urgency, economics, timing and the organization’s ability to execute.
How many opportunities should a company pursue at once?
Fewer than it can identify. The right number depends on capacity, but the decision about what to leave alone is as important as the decision about what to pursue.