5 ways to identify growth initiatives in your company
6 minute read
It’s no secret that digital commerce is booming and that the companies that fail to follow will be left behind. Get our 5 hands-on tips to identify and drive growth through a digital transformation.
you’ll learn how to
- Use a process approach when you identify growth initiatives.
- Adjust your focus when you start innovating.
- Optimise your site and channels to grow traffic, conversation and basket size.
you’ll learn FROM
Michael Vind-Knudsen
Director, Business Consulting at IMPACT
The brain behind this article is one of our most experienced growth experts. When not immersed in novels far from the tech world, he usually finds great inspiration on sites like Harvard Business Review and Forbes.
Go digital, go booming
Since you’re not off reading something else, you’re probably interested in – and well–aware of – the power and importance of digitisation. If you haven’t already read the latest analyses from McKinsey, Forrester and Harvard Business Review, now is the time to pay attention – because they’re all telling the same story:
Institutions that reinvent themselves to make the most of better insight and foresight as preferences evolve will disproportionally succeed.
This statement is our new reality. Just look at the United Kingdom. Post Covid19, digital commerce is still half of all retail sales (ex. grocery sales). The markets are not resigning, and the prediction is worth listening to. If you manage to act on the digital transformation, your company will thrive even more – now and in the future.
But how?
As customers, we expect businesses to foresee our every need. To act on our terms and offer solutions that make our everyday lives easier. Companies, who can use data from in-house technology and insights, will meet these needs and act on the development of digital commerce.
1. How do you ensure that your company can handle the development in e-commerce well?
2. How do you accelerate the digital transformation in your company?
This piece of content sets out to answer these questions. And we’ll serve it to you in 5 steps.
Remember that one step is impossible without the others – no matter how obvious it might seem.
step 1: DEFINE GROWTH
Growth is more than just a thriving top line. It would help if you started with figuring out your main navigation point.
- Do you want a thriving top line or more efficiency at the bottom line?
- Is it an urgent need right now, or should you make a long term solution?
- Do you need to strengthen awareness or drive loyalty?
- Do you need to optimise processes or drive innovation?
And the list could go on. And on. To succeed in identifying growth possibilities, you must clearly understand the challenges that need attention – not being clear means failing.
step 2: ADJUST YOUR FOCUS
Definition of growth – check. Now, it’s time for you to adjust your focus. Let’s use the 70:20:10 Innovation Ambitious Matrix as a starting point – a model fit for illustrating how to drive product innovation.
of your time and budget should be tied to core optimisation. Focus on running the baseline business and only make minor changes.
of your focus should be on adjacent innovative activities. This means leveraging something your company does well into new spaces.
of your focus should be spent on transformational development. In other words, developing things that don’t exist on the market yet.
The most successful solutions are born within the last 10%. If an independent group focuses on inventing what we haven’t seen, well – they will probably foster the solution that actually fixes the pain point for the customers.
Keep in mind that inventing new things and focusing on transformation shouldn’t make up 100% of your resources. And neither should innovation nor core optimisation. It won’t make your process better or more efficient – in fact, it might do quite the opposite.
step 3: KNOW YOUR PROCESS
And here we are. At the beginning of the actual process of generating ideas that will help your company grow. Let’s look at the Double Diamond Process Model – a great fit if you’re looking for a process model that’s helpful and guiding.
Phase 1: Discover
This first part of the process is about understanding the challenge, gathering tons of insights and coming up with new ideas. You’re exploring and expanding the challenge.
Phase 2: Define
In this part of the process, you’ll have tons of ideas that need to be polished. In the define phase, you narrow down your options and sharpen your view on the challenge and the solutions needed.
Phase 3: Develop
You will have to narrow down your idea catalogue making sure that you come up with the right and feasible solution. You should end up with what seems like 8 or 10 good ideas that can actually be developed by your organisation.
Phase 4: Deliver
In the fourth and final phase, it’s time to start building MVP’s and scaling up the ideas from the develop phase. You’ll need to figure out if your ideas are good enough to work in real–life solutions – and learn if the thing is designed right.
A great idea is no idea if you can’t build it.
You’ve now taken all the steps on the Double Diamond stairway. Ideally, what you’re left with after this process is an idea – or multiple ideas – good enough for scaling, implementing and lifting your business into new markets.
step 4: SET YOUR TEAM
The solution you come up with will depend on how your team works. What you need is a cross-functional purpose-built team with a wide range of competencies.
What that really means?
You need to build your team for the given project specifically to complete the task and make the process work well.
You’ll need these 5 roles on your team
01 A business representative
to lead and ‘own’ the process.
02 An experience lead
with a service design approach who can map customer journeys and pains.
03 A technology assessment responsible
whose focus is on feasibility and knows what you can orchestrate or what you need to upgrade to make it happen.
04 A data representative
who can gather and consolidate first and third-party data.
05 One or more Subject Matter Experts (SME)
brought in from other departments of your company to deliver expert knowledge on the subject you want to optimise.
Bringing in competencies from a wide range of people with different backgrounds will make the solution more durable. Also, you ensure that no part of the project is left to chance.
Step 5: TEST YOUR IDEAS
Just because you got out of the Double Diamond Process with great ideas and a team working like one big, merged brain, it doesn’t mean that the ideas are simply going to work out.
It’s time to sanity test your ideas.
- Is the idea desirable to customers? Do you meet the right pain points?
- Is it feasible to produce? Can you actually succeed in building this?
- Is it viable? Will the solution make a difference for your company?
Remember; Checking ‘yes’ to all 3 questions is no guarantee for success. But nevertheless, it’s a useful indicator. You can go all the way through the develop phase just to realise that no good idea can solve the problem. You realise, that only a reorganisation of the company can solve it. Sometimes, when trying to optimise you’ll find a solution much more important than the one you were actually looking for.
Now: You’ve completed the 5 steps to get you started – all that’s left to ask is:
REMEMBER WHAT MCKINSEY SAID?
There are tons of growth areas to explore – some are small and tactical; others are huge and complex. The process we’ve introduced is just one of many ways to initiate growth.
What most processes have in common is that it will be a long, difficult journey. And that it must be done right. But if you remember the prophecy from McKinsey, you’ll know that getting started on your digital transformation sooner rather than later is the best you can do.
Liked what you read?
This piece was a readable version of one of our most viewed webinars. Brought to you by Michael Vind-Knudsen, our in-house growth expert. Eager to learn more? Contact Michael on: mkn@impact.dk.
Or watch the on-demand webinar to get real-life examples and more knowledge on how to drive growth.
