NEWS DETAIL

How to increase growth and improve business performance (Part II)

October 25, 2016

For almost a decade now, since the economic crisis began, management focus has shifted from managing growth to reducing costs, optimising capex and restucturing debt. Discussions about innovation, a key topic until recently, have been substituted by digital transformation, and efficiency improvement programmes have been launched in numerous companies as a way to achieve financial goals.

In implementing this change in focus, companies have deployed intricate management practices and structures resulting in significant internal complexity. In my previous article 4 ways to increase growth and improve business performance in the era of organisational complexity (1) – I describe how this situation builds up and creates negative effects on growth and profitability, what I believe are the ultimate measures of business performance.

In this follow up article, I suggest 4 areas where you can look for improvement opportunities. Not all the business face the same issues, so it might well be that your company has only potential to improve in one or two of the topics outlined here.

(a) Is your company competing with a complex product portfolio?

It is common practice that large companies often operate with extensive and complex product portfolios. In some industries like telecommunications, operators can have up to 200 products and services available for commercial activity across channels. These complex portfolios make work more difficult for sales agents, communication, branding, and customer management teams, creating a negative impact on commercial performance and ROI: Do you have the feeling that your dealers are not sufficiently well trained despite investing substantial amounts in training? Have you ever thought that the communication investment and campaigns have limited impact on sales? Are your customers satisfied with their interactions with the call centres? Do you think that your website is still too complex? Does the development and launch of new products take longer than it should? Indeed, all these situations are also impacted by product portfolio complexity

[...] READ MORE