Why innovation, business redesign and global expansion won’t grow your company
By Vladyslava Podopryhora,
founder MOO AGENCY
founder MOO AGENCY
It's about knowing what to grow, what to build and what to test — at the same time. Innovation can create growth. So can business redesign and global expansion. But none of them is a growth strategy on its own.
The question isn't what is our next big move?
It's whether we are managing today's business, tomorrow's growth and future opportunities as one system.
The question isn't what is our next big move?
It's whether we are managing today's business, tomorrow's growth and future opportunities as one system.
Growth is not about doing more things.
When growth slows down, companies rarely have a shortage of ideas.
A new product. A new business model. A business redesign. International expansion. Each initiative comes with a convincing business case. Each one can look like the answer. So companies don't choose. They add. One more innovation project. One more transformation. One more market.
Before long, the growth agenda becomes a collection of reasonable initiatives competing for the same management attention, people and capital.
And that's where the real problem starts.
Before long, the growth agenda becomes a collection of reasonable initiatives competing for the same management attention, people and capital.
And that's where the real problem starts.
They usually have too many.
The risk is not having too little happening in one of these areas.
The risk is letting one of them consume all management attention.
Ignore the core and you lose the business funding your future. Ignore the next horizon and eventually there is nothing ready to take over. Treat every early idea as a business and you burn resources before there is evidence that it deserves them.
Leadership has to hold all three in view without pretending they should be managed in the same way.
The risk is letting one of them consume all management attention.
Ignore the core and you lose the business funding your future. Ignore the next horizon and eventually there is nothing ready to take over. Treat every early idea as a business and you burn resources before there is evidence that it deserves them.
Leadership has to hold all three in view without pretending they should be managed in the same way.
A business does not grow from one place. There is the business that pays the bills today. There are opportunities that could become the next source of revenue. And there are ideas that are still too early to call a business at all.
The Three Horizons of Growth
Horizon One is the engine you already have.
It generates cash, supports the organisation and gives you the ability to invest beyond the current business.
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Horizon Two is where the next engine is being built.
The opportunity is real enough to justify focus and investment, but it is not yet carrying the weight of the core business.
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Horizon Three is where you place your bets on what could come next.
These are unproven opportunities that still need research, experiments and time before anyone knows whether they can become a business.
So Where Do You Look for Growth?
Growth opportunities are usually already closer than companies think.
But listing possibilities is easy. The harder part is deciding what kind of opportunity each one actually is.
That is where strategy stops being an exercise in generating ideas and starts becoming a set of choices.
The strategic mistake is treating all three with the same urgency and expecting the same return.
Expanding into a new country may simply mean scaling an existing model. In that case, it is an extension of the current business. A new offer might be the beginning of the next growth engine. A completely different model may still be nothing more than an experiment.
You can deepen relationships with existing customers. Reach customers you don't serve today. Expand the offer. Rethink the route to market. Move into new territories. Buy or partner for capabilities you don't have. Or use what the company already knows and owns to enter an adjacent space.
What This Looked Like for One of Our Clients
That was the important shift.
We stopped treating every opportunity as if it required the same commitment.
Some needed to be scaled. Some needed to be built. Some simply needed more time.
The goal was not to pick one answer to growth. It was to make sure the company was moving on three different timelines without confusing one with another.
We stopped treating every opportunity as if it required the same commitment.
Some needed to be scaled. Some needed to be built. Some simply needed more time.
The goal was not to pick one answer to growth. It was to make sure the company was moving on three different timelines without confusing one with another.
We recently faced this question with a client. The team had several credible directions for growth. The challenge was not generating more options. It was deciding where to place the company's attention and resources.
We separated the conversation across the three horizons.
The third horizon is deliberately still open. Several possibilities are being developed, but they have not yet earned the status or the investment of a fully fledged business.
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For the next horizon, the team agreed on one concrete direction and began building the business development capability required to pursue it.
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For the current business, the decision was to keep strengthening the core and take it into selected markets beyond Europe.
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Managing Growth Is a Different Job at Every Horizon
The next business may need a dedicated team, different expertise and sometimes more independence from the core.
This is where many growth plans fall apart. You cannot run an established business, an emerging business and an early-stage opportunity with the same team, the same KPIs or the same expectations. The core needs people focused on performance and improvement.
The Three Horizons framework was introduced by Mehrdad Baghai, Stephen Coley and David White in The Alchemy of Growth. This article reflects our own interpretation and application of the framework in strategic growth work.
Early opportunities need just enough resource to prove or disprove an idea before larger investments are made.
The role of leadership is to keep making these distinctions: what to scale, what to build and what to test — and to change those decisions as opportunities develop.
This is the work we do with leadership teams at MOO through our Strategic Direction Program. We help turn a broad set of growth opportunities into decisions about priorities, ownership and action.
The role of leadership is to keep making these distinctions: what to scale, what to build and what to test — and to change those decisions as opportunities develop.
This is the work we do with leadership teams at MOO through our Strategic Direction Program. We help turn a broad set of growth opportunities into decisions about priorities, ownership and action.
Explore the Strategic Direction Program
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