Our Own Words: McKinsey & Company – Organic Growth

McKinsey & Company recently published an article titled The Roots of Organic Growth, which outlines the path many successful companies take to achieve profitable growth results. To gain insight into the strategies leveraged by these companies in their realization of success, McKinsey conducted a survey of nearly 600 executives and distilled growth strategies into three buckets—investing, creating and performing. Investors allocate funds from less successful tactics to those more likely to produce results. Creators build value through the development of new products, services or business models. Performers realize growth through the constant optimization of core capabilities in sales, pricing and marketing. McKinsey’s survey uncovered that a diversified approach to growth—employing a combination of investing, creating and performing strategies—yielded the highest rate of success.

At Trefoil Group, we stress the criticality of diversified and fluid marketing strategies that facilitate ongoing performance evaluation and strategic shifts based on data-driven insights. In fact, our Client Bill of Rights outlines the importance of regular feedback mechanisms and a bias to action and proactivity—both of which are imperative in our ability to work as a strategic partner, providing results that can be evaluated and measured, and reallocating budgets to the most successful strategies to achieve optimal marketing performance. This practice provides a strategic roadmap that helps us work in conjunction with our clients to reach their business objectives.

Although the philosophy and principles behind company growth remain constant from one client to the next, growth can—and often does—look different for each organization. For example, a company may wish to educate employees about its upcoming evolution through an internal education program, leveraging both Investor and Creator tendencies. Conversely, launching a new brand into the market calls for companies to draw upon Creator and Performer tendencies—especially when a brand is looking to transform from challenger to market contender.

Wherever the journey takes us, one thing is certain—there are many paths to successful organic growth, but they all start and end with a diversified, flexible strategy.