Blind spots, a threat to sustainable growth

Blind spots, a threat to sustainable growth

The successful products of many companies end up losing its charm after a couple of years, taking with him the success he brought at first. The sustained growth of the products of a business depends on effective use of strategic intelligence, as it is through this that you can avoid falling into the trap of blind spots that exist in the environment of an organization.

When a company launches a product that proves to be very successful one must be very careful in the strategy to follow, because, generally, that success is usually temporary and go off slowly in the early years, unless the business is analyzed smart way to maximize all opportunities that may arise there.

The professor at IMD Business School, Bettina Büchel, touches on this issue in an article explaining that to maintain growth and success over time is necessary for companies to discover and develop services, solutions and product families, so the success of a decision or successful product are not left behind, but to continue producing and contributing to the organization.

She explains that the greatest risk to a company at the time to analyze their opportunities are in some blind spots of the organization consist of areas in which executives do not see or understand certain important information, thus taking their business ends fall into a series of traps as miscalculating the boundaries of the industry, not properly identify emerging powers, losing touch with customers, putting too much emphasis on competition and allow visible corporate taboos or the lack of foresight limit under reference.

To overcome these obstacles and avoid falling into traps set by the blind spots of the organization, Büchel recommends making use of strategic intelligence, which is, according to her, "a coordinated combination of research, analysis and distribution of the information needed to make strategic decisions that enable growth opportunities flourish. "

Six strategic intelligence sources

The expert mentions and explains six important sources of strategic intelligence to be taken into account in any business, and integrated decision making, to exploit the opportunities available and not fall into the trap of inflexibility:

1. Trends. Büchel said that executives must understand the trends and global movements in areas such as demographics, regulation and consumer markets, and emphasizes that the issue should not be thought of two or three years but five or ten. Also mentions that not only have to analyze the future trends, but also to establish the actions to be carried out to take the opportunities that may arise.

2. Clients. This point is known to customers, study their behavior and receive feedback on your part to have clarity about what their needs are being met and which not, so they can identify and exploit opportunities for new products or services.

3. Benchmarking. The teacher advised to look beyond the organization and analyze where they come from the highest levels of innovation in the industry and how new discoveries affect the company and its market niche. She recommends not to assume that industry participants remain within the traditional boundaries, but prepare for that at any time new powers arising from different spaces.

4. Extension of the categories. Büchel said that too specifically define the category to which a company belongs lost growth opportunities. What we recommend is to look carefully at what the company offers and how to think can be extended taking into account the wishes of consumers.

5. Skills. At this point it is about recognizing the abilities and skills with a company that has, so there may arise opportunities to grow and develop ideas from what we know to do well.

6. Technology. The expert should be alert to new technologies and analyze how they can adapt to existing products or services, so give them added value and extend the scope of supply as they have done, for example, with cell phones.

Look beyond

Finally, Büchel mentions the importance of analyzing the sources with which account when defining the strategy and conduct research important for growth, and recommends expanding the network of contacts and go beyond what is handy to have as much diversity as possible, thus achieving higher levels of strategic intelligence that lead to overcome these blind spots in the organization.

In his words, "If all of your main sources of information have similar origins, is not very likely to get the same breadth and depth of the ideas necessary to support true innovation for growth."

Concludes that organizations should consider these tips and plunge into the strategic intelligence to find that their success and growth to become a constant and positive elements not only temporary.