Growth Scenarios:

Growth Scenarios:
Tools to Resolve Leaders’ Denial and Paralysis
Jonathan Star and Doug Randall

Businesses increasingly realize that significant
growth opportunities are unlikely to come
from incremental change. Instead they must
address the challenges of novel product and
service innovation, entering unfamiliar geographical
and product markets, and confronting
new rivals.
When the organization ventures into such
untried territory, managing for growth becomes
an exercise in dealing with uncertainty.
Corporations must make decisions
about their growth plans while facing high
levels of unpredictability: Will our business be
commoditized or not? What unanticipated
technologies could disrupt our plans? Will an
unexpected competitor enter our market?
How quickly will our existing products mature
in the market?
Such uncertainties exist at multiple levels: in
the external environment where forces beyond
our control shape the business context,
in the marketplace where customers, competitors
and offerings are changing, and
within our own organizations, as we deal with
the pressures to rethink our structures and
reinvent our business models. This is especially
difficult for successful, powerful organizations;
if they are to evolve they must challenge
the very assumptions and beliefs that
brought them success in the past.