Thinking

Closing the growth gap

Amid economic turbulence and uncertainty, organisations often find themselves stagnating, chasing small wins and losing sight of the big picture. Caught in a holding pattern of marginal growth and ferocious competition.

Yet how do we step back and reveal our businesses true growth potential? It’s about setting a clear direction for growth based on a view of what the future will be and what role you want to play in it.

The Curse of Incrementalism

Let’s face it: most companies are addicted to the safety of incremental moves. Leveraging existing competencies and assets to spot occasional market spaces to occupy and dominate. Tweaking products, refining services, and optimizing processes based on current data feels productive, but it’s a myopic view. Yet, incrementalism keeps the lights on, it allows us to profitably maximise our investments in a given market, you just don’t want to worry about the lights when the ship is sinking…

When we are dominated by incrementalism we are living in a gilded cage, limiting an organisations true growth potential, its capacity to develop innovation muscle and become an unstoppable force.

Your ‘Role in the World’

Our main mission is to establish a timeless vision of long-term growth and relevance for large organizations. We call this vision your ‘role in the world.’ This isn’t just corporate mumbo jumbo; it’s about figuring out what your business can uniquely bring to the table across various markets, technologies, and lifestyle changes that others haven’t even thought of yet. It hinges on being astute enough to look at where culture is heading, how it is shifting the consumers expectations and looking for an opportunity to play a pivotal role in their new world. If you’re thinking about what you mean to customers today, in order to prepare for tomorrow, you’re doing it wrong. You’re developing a strategy that is deliberate, and already redundant before you’ve even put it into action. Looking to the future, identifying your North Star, and focussing your growth efforts on working towards it allows you to proactively predict the unmet needs (and unseen opportunities) that the future holds.

Why Organizations Need a ‘Role in the World’

Let’s face it, the traditional focus on fighting it out in existing categories is like running on a hamster wheel. Our approach? It encourages leaders to dream bigger—think about how they can revolutionize markets, technologies, and consumer interactions. Defining a ‘role in the world’ sets off three game-changing outcomes:

  1. Field of Play: Revealing Future Potential Think beyond your current categories, and map out where you can really add value. This ‘field of play’ includes segments and products you might not be exploring yet but should definitely have on your radar. It’s about expanding your footprint and seeing where your long-term vision can take you.
  2. Exploration and Adaptation: Celebrating Curiosity Once you’re driven by this grand vision, you foster a culture of continuous exploration and adaptation. It’s like being a kid in a candy store—constantly evaluating and improving what you offer. Curiosity becomes your best friend, leading to the exploration of new areas and tech, ensuring you stay ahead of the curve.
  3. Efficiencies of Emergent Strategy With a crystal-clear role in the world, you can spot and seize opportunities across industries. This strategic clarity helps you adapt quickly to changes and interconnected opportunities. Your radar for spotting new chances expands, making your growth strategy dynamic and responsive.

How We Define a ‘Role in the World’

Our playbook? It’s got a few key steps:

  1. Identifying Core Capabilities: First, we take stock of what you’re great at. This means diving into what your business excels at and the resources you’ve got.
  2. Codifying Cultural DNA: Next, we get under the hood to understand the cultural elements that drive or inhibit growth. We look at your values, beliefs, and practices to nail down the cultural DNA that’ll support your role in the world.
  3. Evaluating Trends: Then, we scope out customer trends, cultural shifts, and market changes. This is all about identifying the key trends shaping the future and influencing your strategy.
  4. Future-Back Strategy: We define future scenarios to pinpoint your desired role. By imagining multiple future scenarios, we can highlight the most promising growth paths. This allows us to identify where the consumer is heading, what their future context will be and proactively evolve our offering to meet their future needs.
  5. Statement of Intent: We craft a clear statement that spells out your role in the world. This statement is your guiding star, aligning all your efforts toward that long-term vision.
  6. Field of play: Following this statement we develop a map of all the relevant spaces you can touch in the future, new categories, technologies, consumer types etc
  7. Roadmap: Now we develop a roadmap of opportunity exploration to begin the process of delivering on your role in the world, and start to deliver on your true growth potential.

Why Vivaldi is Best in Class

For over two decades, Vivaldi has been the champion of the idea that a brand is the face of a business strategy. Our approach transcends the navel-gazing strategies of purpose, focusing instead on defining a clear, actionable role in the world. This vision is what drives growth and resilience, constantly adapting to new opportunities.

A Pathway to Exponential Growth

Redefining your ambition and establishing a ‘role in the world’ lets you break free from incrementalism, and reveal your true growth potential way beyond current categories of operation. This approach not only opens up new growth opportunities but also fosters a culture of continuous exploration and adaptation. Vivaldi’s proven methodologies and tools ensure that you’re equipped to navigate the modern business landscape and achieve long-term, sustainable growth.