“Grow revenue” states an ambition. It leaves open where growth should come from, why customers would choose the business and what the team must stop doing. A workable strategy makes these choices explicit enough to guide everyday decisions.
Choose where you will compete
Start with a defined customer group, a need and a market context. Consider whether the opportunity is attractive and whether the organisation has the capabilities to serve it well. Broad market potential is only one part of the question; access, competition, economics and delivery constraints matter too.
Separate what you know from what you assume. Customer conversations, transaction patterns and competitor analysis can each inform the picture, with different limitations. Label uncertainty rather than disguising it as precision.
Explain why the customer should choose you
Describe the customer problem in their terms, the value your offer provides and the evidence that makes the promise credible. A positioning statement should help people make a choice. If competitors could use the same words without changing their offer, the statement needs more work.
For a hypothetical professional services firm, “excellent solutions for everyone” offers little direction. A sharper choice could focus on a particular type of client facing a specific transition, supported by relevant delivery experience. That choice should be tested with the intended audience.
Identify the few assumptions that matter most
What would have to be true for the strategy to work? Perhaps customers must value a faster service, a channel partner must provide access or the operating team must support a higher volume. Rank assumptions by their impact and uncertainty.
Design a proportionate test before committing to a full rollout. Set out what evidence you will collect and what would lead you to continue, adapt or stop. A pilot should reduce uncertainty, not merely create activity that looks like progress.
Connect choices to operating commitments
Give each priority an owner, a near-term milestone and a measure of progress. Include capability work such as training, data quality or service redesign where the customer promise depends on it. Name what is being deprioritised so the strategy has room to operate.
Review results at a cadence suited to the work. Distinguish an execution delay from evidence that the original assumption was wrong. The response may be to improve delivery, change the offer or reconsider the choice itself.
Use a one-page working strategy
- The customer and opportunity we are choosing.
- The value proposition and reason to believe.
- The assumptions we must test.
- The priorities, owners and resources.
- The review date and evidence for the next decision.
A strategy earns its value when it changes what a team does and helps it learn. Explore Strategy & Growth at Adventis or bring us your growth question.