Purpose
Defines clear steps for growth planning that support answers to the crucial question: How and where are you planning to scale up the business and what talent do you need to implement this?
Design/methodology/approach
As the “Business model value matrix” shows, having ‘happy customers’ is only one determinant of a business model’s success. The other essential block of diagnostic questions deals with the current state and prospects of the firm’s growth.
Findings
We found that companies that have found ways to keep their business models in a winner’s state can provide clear, evidence-based answers to questions about growth opportunities and risks, while their less successful peers have difficulty addressing the issues. Continuous collecting and analyzing of this information allows successful companies to embrace the strategy-as-learning model of development, built around active learning and proactive adjustment to evolving environment.
Practical implications
To develop a strategy for moving to and sustaining the Winner state, managers must clearly articulate and test a set of hypotheses about the mechanisms of their company’s growth. The first step on this path is related to obtaining a clear view on the factors that underpin the current financial performance.
Originality/value
High-performance cultures make sure that each manager has the clear answers to the questions of value, growth and digitization in order to learn, experiment and implement the company business model agenda. The unproductive cultures, on the other hand, are sustained by managerial teams that usually do not have the answers to these crucial questions, but are very good at political games.
High-growth firms and scale-ups: a review and research agenda