In the Media

While the general public can be accused of having short memories, it doesn’t take much for us to remember the volatility the financial markets experienced in the month of August. Standard & Poors’ downgrade of

"Why Companies Adopt Growth Strategies: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly"

                                                                                  After asking top marketers to describe the nature of their growth strategies (see 8/6 post), The CMO Survey asked them to “Rate the top three reasons why your firm is pursuing this growth strategy.” I gave marketers the following options: (1) opportunity to leverage brands; (2) opportunity to leverage existing customer relationships; (3) threat of domestic competitors; (4) threat of foreign competitors; (5) pressure from price-sensitive customers; (6) pressure from the stock market; and (7) ambition of company leaders.

                                                                          Here’s the good news. When I sum up the ratings across the three top spots, the most highly cited reason is the “opportunity to leverage existing customer relationships” (27.3%). This is the always a good reason to grow and usually one that companies can do rather effectively and efficiently. Companies best understand their existing customers and so extending offerings to cross-sell or asking the customer to help reach other customers like them usually works.

The most recent CMO Survey asked approximately 500 top marketers to describe how their companies have grown in the past 12 months and how they will grow during the next 12 months. Marketers were asked