Sustainable Growth:

Searching for Opportunities

Outside-In Company

Discovering Growth Opportunities by Looking at Your Business from the Customer's Perspective

Developing Sustainable Growth Strategy From the Outside In

The real world strategic thinking is both imaginative and highly disciplined. Outside-in thinking can transform businesses that are "commoditized", "mature" or otherwise supposedly without growth prospects.

In the outside-in company, as opposed to inside-out one, the key word is need, not product. Their people think expansively. They observe people, "they're totally immersed in the minds of their customers, looking for ways to expand demand. Their business plans and value propositions derive from the marketplace, based on the knowledge gathered at ground level. Often, the needs they define haven't yet been identified by the customers themselves."¹

A sustainable growth strategy of an outside-in company "starts with understanding the difference between what you make and what people need – which often turns out not to be the same thing. Tapping your resources of energy and imagination, you look at your company from the perspective of your once and future customers, and asking endless questions about what's going on in the real world."¹ Having stepped outside of your business, then work backward to ask questions about your business to find out how you can pursue the market opportunities identified.

 Case in Point  3M

Ram Charan and Noel Trichy¹ in their book Every Business Is a Growth Business write: "Many companies have seemingly done well thinking from the inside out. 3M achieved legendary success as an innovator by giving its people room to develop their ideas in quasi-entrepreneurial fashion. For years, it ranked among the leaders of FORTUNE's list of most admired companies. But during the first half of the 90s, 3M grew its top line less than 4% despite the brilliance of its entrepreneurial technologists. There wasn't enough feedback from the marketplace – missing were the insight into the customer's mind, and the intuitive observations about needs that could have translated inventiveness into powerful growth." In late 90s, new leadership got the company back on track with outside-in growth initiatives.

The Framework for a Growth Strategy: 4 Rules...

4 Components To Develop Market Focus...

Listening To Your Customers...

Positioning Your Business...