Choosing where to grow

The problem it solves

Very few mid-sized companies ever decided where to grow. They grew wherever they were pulled: the client who asked for one more service, the distributor who offered another territory, the line a partner wanted to try, the tender that turned up late on a Friday. Each step made sense when it was taken, and nobody chose the total.

The symptoms are familiar from the inside. Leadership debates opportunities one at a time, with no shared yardstick to compare them, so whoever pitches with the most conviction usually wins. Some fronts stay open only because they were hard to open in the first place. Sales chases any client willing to pay, even when half of them strain the operation. And when the partners finally sit down to talk it through, they discover each of them had a different company in mind.

The cost never lands on a single line of the income statement, which is why it gets tolerated for years. It is paid in scattered attention, in capabilities half-built on several fronts at once, and in good opportunities lost because the resources were already tied up in others nobody compared. A company that grows in every direction ends up strong in none.

What it covers

An intensive workshop for the team that decides where the company grows. It does not deal with executing a plan or with the financial case for a specific investment; it deals with the choice that comes first, the one that determines which plans and investments are worth considering at all. The starting point is an honest inventory of the growth avenues available — selling more to current clients, attracting similar clients, entering a different segment, widening the offer or reaching another territory — and of the ones the company is already pursuing without ever having chosen them.

Each avenue is examined with two questions the workshop deliberately keeps apart. The first is how attractive it is: the margin it allows, how reachable the client is, how long it takes to mature. The second is how ready the company is to win there: the verifiable reason a new client would pick it, the capabilities it would need to build, and what it would take away from the business that pays the bills today. Blending the two questions is the quickest route to chasing markets that are very attractive to somebody else.

The session moves through group exercises built on the company's actual situation. Participants place the avenues on an attractiveness-and-capability grid, argue over the evidence behind each judgement and, above all, draft the list of what will not be pursued for now, with the reason and the date it will be reviewed. That list is the hardest output to agree on and the one that protects the company most, because it lets leadership decline an attractive opportunity without reopening the whole debate every time. With the direction chosen, the team designs a one-page filter for the opportunities that will arrive during the year and sets the sequence: which avenue opens first, and what would have to be true before opening the next.

The team leaves with a map of its growth avenues, a written assessment of each, the exclusion list and the filter. The financial analysis of the chosen avenue, the design of the offer and the preparation of the operation come afterwards, and ALUD has specific work in Finance, Growth and Operations for each of them. Within ALUD's framework this is the core conversation of the Strategy engine: direction and priorities get settled before any other engine starts to move.

What participants learn

• Identify the growth avenues available, including those the company already pursues without having chosen them.
• Evaluate each avenue separately for attractiveness and for the company's ability to win there.
• Decide in writing which avenues stay out for now, with the reason and the review date.
• Design a one-page filter for the opportunities that arrive during the year.
• Prioritise a sequence showing which avenue opens first and what must be true before opening the next.

Agenda

1. 01The ways to grow: current clients, similar clients, another segment, another offer, another territory
2. 02Growth that arrived without anyone deciding it
3. 03Attractiveness and ability to win: two questions best kept apart
4. 04Why us: the verifiable reason a new client would choose the company
5. 05What each avenue takes away from the business that pays the bills today
6. 06The list of what is not pursued, with its reason and review date
7. 07A filter for the opportunity that arrives unannounced
8. 08The sequence: what must be true before opening the next front

What the organisation leaves with

• A map of the company's growth avenues, with those currently pursued without an explicit decision marked.
• A written assessment of each avenue for attractiveness and ability to win, with the evidence behind each judgement.
• A list of what the company will not pursue for now, with the reason and review date for each exclusion.
• A one-page filter for testing any new opportunity against the chosen direction.