Too Many Growth Priorities Is the Same as Having No Growth Strategy

When growth is under pressure, companies tend to create more priorities, not fewer. There are new markets to enter, customers to pursue, products to launch, channels to develop, and opportunities sales doesn't want to walk away from.

Individually, many of these ideas make sense. Collectively, they become a problem.

Most small and mid-sized manufacturers have limited sales resources, marketing resources, technical capabilities, capital, and leadership bandwidth. When everything becomes a growth priority, resources get spread across too many opportunities, and very few receive enough focus to materially change the business.

A long list of growth initiatives isn't a growth strategy. Strategy requires choices.

The first question worth asking when evaluating a business is where its growth actually comes from and where it makes money.

The answers are often more complicated than the overall revenue number suggests.

Some markets may be growing significantly faster than others. Certain customer segments may value what the company does particularly well. Some products may generate attractive margins while others consume resources without creating much profit. Large customers may generate significant revenue but create complexity, price pressure or excessive working capital requirements.

The same is true of new opportunities. A large potential market isn't necessarily an attractive market for a given business. It may require capabilities the company doesn't have, involve entrenched competitors, create poor margins, or offer little meaningful differentiation.

The objective isn't simply to identify where growth is possible. It is to determine which growth is worth pursuing. That requires understanding the economics of the business, the attractiveness of different markets and customers, the company's capabilities, and where it has a meaningful right to win.

Not All Growth Is Equally Valuable

Manufacturing businesses often identify six, eight, or ten different growth initiatives and call all of them strategic priorities.

The problem usually isn't the quality of the ideas. Many of them are legitimate opportunities. The problem is what happens next.

Sales continues pursuing the opportunities directly in front of it. Marketing spreads its budget across multiple markets and messages. Product and technical resources get pulled into different projects. Leadership adds initiatives without removing anything. Everyone remains busy, but the company never concentrates enough resources against the opportunities that matter most.

Over time, another problem develops. Because the organization isn't seeing sufficient results, leadership begins questioning the strategy and introduces additional priorities.

More activity gets added to solve a lack of results that was partly caused by too much activity in the first place.

Focus isn't simply about making a list of important things. It requires deciding what deserves disproportionate attention and what does not.

The Cost of Too Many Priorities

Make Explicit Choices About Where to Grow

A strong growth strategy should create clarity around a relatively small number of questions: Which markets and segments are most attractive? Which customer types best fit the company's capabilities and value proposition? Which existing customers should be protected or expanded? Where should the company invest to acquire new customers? Which products and capabilities should receive greater investment? And where should attention be deliberately reduced?

The last question is often the hardest.

Organizations are generally comfortable adding priorities. They are much less comfortable saying no to revenue opportunities, reducing resources in a historical market, or deciding that an attractive-looking opportunity isn't right for them.

But resources are finite. Every dollar and hour invested in one opportunity is unavailable somewhere else. Strategy therefore isn't only about choosing what to do. It is also about choosing what not to do.

Once those choices are clear, execution becomes significantly easier. Marketing knows where to concentrate resources and develop deeper market expertise. Sales knows which accounts deserve greater attention. Product and technical teams understand which opportunities should receive priority. Leadership can allocate resources and measure progress against a common set of growth objectives.

The organization begins pulling in the same direction.

Prioritization Doesn’t Mean Ignoring Opportunity

There is an important distinction between focus and rigidity.

Markets change. Customers present unexpected opportunities. New technologies emerge. A manufacturer shouldn't ignore a highly attractive opportunity simply because it wasn't included in the annual plan.

But new opportunities should be evaluated against the same strategic criteria as everything else: Is the market attractive? Does the opportunity fit the customers and segments the company wants to serve? Can the company create differentiated value? Does it have a right to win? Are the economics attractive? What resources will it require? And if the company pursues it, what is it willing to deprioritize?

That final question creates discipline. Without it, every new opportunity simply gets added to the existing workload.

A Question Worth Asking

Ask your leadership team to independently identify the company's three most important growth priorities.

If you receive five different answers, or everyone hands you a list of eight priorities, the issue probably isn't execution yet. The business hasn't made enough strategic choices.

Growth strategy should create clarity about where the organization will concentrate its limited resources to create the greatest value.

Because if everything is a priority, nothing really is.