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For the last 2 years I've had the opportunity to study best practices to drive innovation in the context of a large, multi-national organization. While I have been working on an Innovation team, when I look at at "innovation" in the context of a large organization, what we are really concerned with is revenue and EBIT growth. In a series of posts, I would like to layout a comprehensive model to drive growth in such an organization. First, I need to define what I mean by "Growth Strategy" and when is it needed.

Let's use an example of Global Co. - a fictional company. 2010 was a monumental year as they achieved $1 billion in revenues. However, Global Co. is facing a challenge typical of all successful companies. Global Co.'s revenue growth is plotted on the image below. You can see that they have grown from $400 million to $1 billion in six years, but there are clear signs that Global Co.'s business is maturing. Slowing revenue growth and compressing gross margins are clear signals of the maturing market. While this is happening Global Co. has been focused on becoming more operationally efficient, so, in spite of shrinking gross margins, EBIT margins are increasing. This is a common situation - a company executing an operational efficient strategy facing the slowing growth of a maturing market. 

Global Co. needs a growth model. I say a model because a piece-meal approach won't work. A model brings strategy, structure, processes, and resources to address the problem in a comprehensive manner. This series will layout what I, based on my research and work experience, believe is needed in such a model to help re-energize Global Co.'s growth.