Smart Things to Know about Growth

Unless you have clear goals and growth strategy, then your business could easily slide into a sense of complacency and even begin to go backwards. To grow requires the drive to reinvent yourself, to rethink your business and to even attempt to change the mindset of the industry itself.

Smart Things to Know about Growth takes a sharp look at the latest thinking on making the most of the opportunities and avoiding the pitfalls associated with rapid growth. Tony Grundy provides a comprehensive grounding in the principles that underlie sustainable growth, including setting growth objectives, learning how to adapt to changing circumstances, recognizing when growth is not a good idea and keeping your people with you.

Here are just a few of the smartest things to know about growth:

• Growwth is a dynamic, ongoing process — and thus requires continuous reflection and review, rather than being deep-frozen in annual business plans
• Sustainable growth will only come in the long term by creative use of the imagination.
• By being able to let go of the current industry (and company) mindset, it becomes easier to think about how you might reach a superior growth path.
• Most acquisitions actually dilute or destroy shareholder value.
• The 'how' of your growth strategy is just as important as the 'what' and the 'why'.
• Growth strategies require obsessive attention to stakeholder management.

Perhaps you may currently lack clarity about relative priorities of your growth objectives, your growth strategy and how you will implement it? Or perhaps you are just starting your own business, or you are a manager who needs a boost in the latest thinking in the marketplace, Smart Things to Know about Growth shows you the right moves to make. Watch your company and your career take off!

1. Introduction
2. Managing Growth Drivers and Competitive Pressure
3. Diagnosis of Growth Issues
4. Cunning Options for Growth
5. Managing Organic Growth — With Success
6. Managing Acquisitive Growth — With Success
7. Implementing Growth Strategies
8. Valuing Growth Strategies
9. Growth Checklists
10. Conclusions