Innovating with Strategy

For some businesses just having a strategy….. would be an innovation rather than reacting to customer demands and market wiggles.  Even better would be having a strategy that establishes long term goals for your company and your products.  If Henry ford or Steve Jobs of Apple hadn't had a strategy that reached beyond just “satisfying the customer” we would have missed out on some pretty cool life changing inventions. So, having the right strategy that is simple and clear can solve lots of problems and be an enormous energizer for everyone in the company.  However, I don’t mean simple as in, “we want to grow ten percent per year.”  That doesn’t bring to mind anything specifically actionable like what, how, where, who and when.  “Growth” is not even clear enough to be a strategy, since growth for growths sake is meaningless.  The reason for growth, such as gaining market share to lower operating costs or to gain pricing advantage is far more clear and simple but it still lacks the how and where etc.   
    Gaining market share is clearly a prize because of those advantages but how to do it is what’s tricky!  David didn’t meet Goliath on his terms and going head to head with the market leader is usually not a winning strategy for gaining market share.  Think Walmart, or Southwest Airlines, they started out being the little fish but their brilliant but simple strategy was to never go near the big fish until they were big enough and better.  So, if you are one of the little fish selling a product that’s pretty much the same as the big fish then learn the lesson of Walmart because where you grow and how you grow are just as important as why!

By: Kevin Minne
InnovationGrowthSystems.com
720-354-0291

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