Strategic Planning with the Growth Phases Framework

Growth Phases is a technique that enables better strategic planning in business.

According to the Growth Phases, model, there are six stages of growth. Each stage requires its own strategies and structures.

• Growth through creativity is the initial phase of a company, characterized by hard work and poor pay. The company is typically small, relatively unstructured, and highly adaptive. Eventually the company reaches a size that required additional leadership and management capabilities.
  
  
• Growth through direction is characterized by sustained growth, the development of management systems and processes.
  
  
• Growth through delegation gives middle management decreased authority and autonomy. Top management intervenes only when necessary, and reviews are done periodically to manage from a distance.
  
  
• Growth through coordination and monitoring constitutes the separation of the company into divisions (e.g., product groups), a corporate staff that oversees and monitors critical control structures, and division-level managers with Profit and Loss accountability. Formalized structures and bureaucracy eventually results in a red-tape crisis.
  
  
• Growth through collaboration accounts for decentralization, cross-functional teams, and innovative development. At this stage the company reaches an internal growth crisis.
  
  
• Growth through extra-organizational solutions is a sixth stage added in the 1990's. It describes mergers, and networks of organizations as an additional path of growth.
  
  
  

  Other Strategic Planning Frameworks

  4P's Marketing Mix - Seven S (7S) Management Framework - AIDA - Attention, Interest, Desire, Action - Buying Process - Ansoff's Matrix - Product-Market Growth Matrix - Expansion Strategy - BCG Growth-Share Matrix - Bass Diffusion Model - Product Adoption and Innovation - Blue Ocean Strategy - Choice Model for Decision-Making Behavior - Competitive Advantage - Core Competence - Collective Learning in the Organization - Cost-Benefit Analysis - Delta Model - ERG (Existence, Relatedness, Growth) Theory of Motivation - Experience Curve - Framing Effect on Psychology and Marketing - GE (McKinsey) Matrix - Growth Phases - Predicting Industry Evolution and Change - OODA Loop - Observe, Orient, Decide, Act - PDCA (Plan, Do, Check, Act) - The Deming Cycle - PEST Analysis - Political, Economical, Social, Technological, Environmental, and Legal Factors - Perceptual Mapping - Brand Marketing - Porter's Five Forces - Product and Marketing Positioning - Product Lifecycle (Industry Lifecycle) - Root Cause Analysis - SWOT Analysis - Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunties, Threats - Technology Adoption Curve - Value Chain -