The Top Nine Myths of Revenue and Growth
In our series, The Top Nine Myths of Revenue & Growth, AlixPartners spotlights the changing calculus of revenue strategies and suggests ways companies can overcome commonly held myths to achieve profitable growth.
As with any commercial transformation, it's just as important to know what to avoid as it is to know what to do. Our myths series puts these vulnerabilities in context with key opportunity for long-term profitability.
For companies seeking top line revenue growth, the rules of the game have changed. Across industries, market dynamics are evolving at an ever-increasing pace as companies derive data-driven insights and apply digital strategies to move quickly and decisively in order to adapt and grow.
With those new rules, come new strategies. Now more than ever, speed to results and rapid execution in sales, marketing,
pricing, and profitability are becoming fundamental to remaining competitive. Many commonly held assumptions have been rendered obsolete, yet many companies still fall prey to the myths as they struggle to respond to the competition.
Avoid the myths and achieve tangible growth. With the changing rules of the game, how can investors and managers overcome myths and maintain or enhance profitable growth? More important, how can they execute while staying strategically nimble enough to remain responsive to the market and not only survive but also thrive?
If your business has become trapped by any of these myths, please see all our go-to-market services from customer analytics to product planning to pricing optimization.
The Top Nine Myths
1. "Speed kills." When it comes to growth strategy initiatives, a popular myth is that speed kills. We debunk this belief by demonstrating that a rapid and focused implementation of a new, data-driven sales model can generate significant results. Speed doesn't kill; speed pays. Read the article.
2. "Beware of false profits." An accurately-costed profit model is essential to determine the true implications of volume and revenue growth, to reduce levels of complexity, and, ultimately, to regain control of the business. Read the article.
3. "There is no such thing as a bad sales lead." Sales organizations are nothing without prospects in the pipeline. But prospects are of little value to a company that can’t distinguish between high-value leads and those that drain resources without generating revenue or profit. A rigorous, technology-augmented approach to segmentation can help any organization make the most of its sales resources—and deliver more value to the bottom line. Read the article.
4. "The perils of sticking with a winning formula." As a company emerges from the startup chrysalis and shifts into a rapid growth phase, earlier decisions taken on the fly to win new customers or satisfy existing ones lock the company into practices and promises that could constrain continued profitable growth. Why can’t we just keep doing what got us here? Read the article.
5. "More data is always good." Sales analytics systems can deliver massive amounts of data, but most sales teams make minimal use of the insights and struggle to turn data into action to drive decision-making and revenue-enhancing activities. How should management determine which data can feed the analytics that will address the organization’s true sales challenges? Read the article.
6. "Nothing is for free." Raising prices on products and services will jeopardize customer demand. Read the article.
7. "Brands aren’t built in a day. Except when they are." It doesn’t have to take years or an oversized marketing budget to establish a brand identity. Read the article.
8. "Hands off my sales organization!" How cost transformations can be re-framed as opportunities to optimize the sales organization and pivot towards growth.
9. "M&A growth is automatic." M&A must be aligned to drive a synergistic top line growth opportunity.
We invite your comments and feedback on the myths as each is released.