Growth platforms are specific initiatives selected by a

business Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or Trade, buying and selling Product (business), products (such as goods and Service (economics), services). It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for pr ...

organization to increase their

revenue In accounting, revenue is the total amount of income generated by the sale of goods and services related to the primary operations of the business. Commercial revenue may also be referred to as sales or as turnover. Some companies receive reven ...

and

earnings Earnings are the net benefits of a corporation's operation. Earnings is also the amount on which corporate tax is due. For an analysis of specific aspects of corporate operations several more specific terms are used as EBIT (earnings before interes ...

growth. There are two types of growth platforms: strategic or tactical. Strategic growth platforms usually take from 3 to 6 years to implement and give the desired results being long term initiatives. On the other hand, Tactical growth platforms take less time to implement as they are shorter term initiatives and both the initiative and the results are based on the current

budget A budget is a calculation play, usually but not always financial, for a defined period, often one year or a month. A budget may include anticipated sales volumes and revenues, resource quantities including time, costs and expenses, environmenta ...

year of the particular business.

Stages of growth strategy

There are three stages in implementing a

growth planning Growth planning is a strategic business activity that enables business owners to plan and track organic growth in their revenue. It allows businesses to allocate their limited resources toward a centered effort to adapt to changes in the industry dr ...

process which are based on three basic questions: # "Where are we now?" # "Where do we want to go?" # "How do we get to here?" Strategic analysis: referred to the environment (which could either be internal, external and

marketing Marketing is the process of exploring, creating, and delivering value to meet the needs of a target market in terms of goods and services; potentially including selection of a target audience; selection of certain attributes or themes to emph ...

) where the business operated. It also looked at the resources possessed by the business or that it could possibly have and at the expectations and objectives of its main stakeholders and owners. Strategic choice: it basically generates options which have to do with the strategic analysis. This process evaluates the options based on acceptability, feasibility and suitability and then selects the suitable strategy Strategic implementation: this process focus on achieving the correct organisational structure, planning the resources (physical and financial) and sorting out the systems and the people by implementing the change process. This process has been developing and it can be considered one of the few "big company" management theories which can be used effectively and simply. Most businesses have a growth strategy which is based on "acquisitions and partnerships that create shareholder value by creating or reinforcing platforms for long-term growth".

Growth sustainability

When a

is in a high-growth industry it is able to maintain high growth rates for a longer period of time. However, many

investors An investor is a person who allocates financial capital with the expectation of a future return (profit) or to gain an advantage (interest). Through this allocated capital most of the time the investor purchases some species of property. Type ...

take this high growth as granted which usually lead to much slower growth rates once the

industry Industry may refer to: Economics * Industry (economics), a generally categorized branch of economic activity * Industry (manufacturing), a specific branch of economic activity, typically in factories with machinery * The wider industrial sector ...

stops booming. It is believed that 65% of acquisitions which businesses buy in order to grow in size have destroyed more value than they actually created, an acquisition can’t be a substitute for a growth platform. New growth platforms help companies grow as they created families of products, services, and businesses and extend their capabilities into multiple new domains. The NGPs acted as a method of growth in which each business was acquiring new capabilities and further market knowledge. The size of the growth platform is strategic to the

corporation A corporation is an organization—usually a group of people or a company—authorized by the state to act as a single entity (a legal entity recognized by private and public law "born out of statute"; a legal person in legal context) and r ...

. Small scaled businesses can only have a NGP when provided through a

partnership A partnership is an arrangement where parties, known as business partners, agree to cooperate to advance their mutual interests. The partners in a partnership may be individuals, businesses, interest-based organizations, schools, governments o ...

government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is a ...

funding, usually these exist in the

agricultural sector The primary sector of the economy includes any industry involved in the extraction and production of raw materials, such as farming, logging, fishing, forestry and mining. The primary sector tends to make up a larger portion of the economy in de ...

and improve the knowledge and

infrastructure Infrastructure is the set of facilities and systems that serve a country, city, or other area, and encompasses the services and facilities necessary for its economy, households and firms to function. Infrastructure is composed of public and priv ...

ensuring better food security.

New growth platforms (NGPs)

Creating a new growth platform

Rediscovering the

technology Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, science, ...

and the talent present in an

organization An organization or organisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is an entity—such as a company, an institution, or an association—comprising one or more people and having a particular purpose. The word is derived from ...

a company or exploring its external

networks Network, networking and networked may refer to: Science and technology * Network theory, the study of graphs as a representation of relations between discrete objects * Network science, an academic field that studies complex networks Mathematics ...

, a business is able to find capabilities needed to create a new growth platform. Then a company should evaluate the potential capabilities which it needs to develop. Companies tend to undermine the number of possible growth platforms that could be created to increase customer needs. This is a consequence of senior managers not thinking more broadly and only thinking about a product or service that would beat the

competition Competition is a rivalry where two or more parties strive for a common goal which cannot be shared: where one's gain is the other's loss (an example of which is a zero-sum game). Competition can arise between entities such as organisms, indivi ...

. After identifying suitable new areas of growth, a business needs to quantify and evaluate the opportunities to generate the lines of the business. In order to meet a new or uncovered customer need a new growth platform has to form as a result of a force of change which include new technologies, social pressures or changes in the

legal system The contemporary national legal systems are generally based on one of four basic systems: civil law, common law, statutory law, religious law or combinations of these. However, the legal system of each country is shaped by its unique history an ...

Possible places for growth

In order to generate an opportunity for sustained growth a business needs to widen its capabilities into innovative domains. NGPs provide a structure for creating

business process A business process, business method or business function is a collection of related, structured activities or tasks by people or equipment in which a specific sequence produces a service or product (serves a particular business goal) for a parti ...

es, services and even families of products. The size of each NGP is essential to the strategy of the organization. A successful NGP requires "a well tried process, high quality information and external insights – often from well outside the company’s own

market Market is a term used to describe concepts such as: *Market (economics), system in which parties engage in transactions according to supply and demand *Market economy *Marketplace, a physical marketplace or public market Geography *Märket, an ...

space".

Difficulties in finding a new growth platform

Some studies have shown that more than 90% of companies are not able to find new possible sources of growth. Through the understanding of these difficulties, it makes it simpler to deal with the problem. Many argue that poor processes and skills lead to this high failure rate. Consequently, the main advice given to these companies is to be willing to take more risks and do the same "approaches used in the venture capital

and build a pipeline of new businesses". It has been detected that the success of companies lies in new growth areas which have existing mindsets fitting the critical success factors of the business. Therefore, failure results when the company involves with factors that do not fit when the company is trying to grow in different new areas. The low success rate of finding a new growth platform can also be explained by the shortage of opportunities theory, which suggests a new way of resolving the problem. This theory proposes that "efforts to generate additional ideas or to experiment with a

portfolio Portfolio may refer to: Objects * Portfolio (briefcase), a type of briefcase Collections * Portfolio (finance), a collection of assets held by an institution or a private individual * Artist's portfolio, a sample of an artist's work or a ...

of new ventures are likely to be fruitless". In addition, failure can also be caused by less

risk In simple terms, risk is the possibility of something bad happening. Risk involves uncertainty about the effects/implications of an activity with respect to something that humans value (such as health, well-being, wealth, property or the environme ...

aversion and more broadmindedness of

entrepreneurship Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values th ...

. In order to resolve this issue the corporate mindsets need to change or investing only in cases that match with what is needed having a high chance of succeeding.

Examples of growth platforms

Examples of strategic growth platforms which in these cases are using specific and innovative product areas or entering into a new distribution channel: *In order to increase growth, Apple Computers targeted “personal music systems” using its personal business of computers *IBM invented the term "

e-business Electronic business (or "Online Business" or "e-business") is any kind of business or commercial transaction that includes sharing information across the internet. Commerce constitutes the exchange of products and services between businesses, grou ...

" and used it as the organizing theme of what the company did during the late 1990s Examples of tactical growth platforms include specific new sales force programs or a new emphasis for the

advertising Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a product or service. Advertising aims to put a product or service in the spotlight in hopes of drawing it attention from consumers. It is typically used to promote a ...

for the year.

References

External links

* * {{Social sciences Strategic management hy:Մենեջմենթ tr:İşletme