Productive tips: How to achieve more with your nine to five

Growth is rarely easy. Based on conversations with senior business leaders across industries, we sense an increasing recognition that it has never been more difficult to generate and sustain growth. To be clear, we are talking about growth driven by customer interest and market demand, rather than the temporary variety driven by acquisition, cost takeout or organizational restructuring. The bottom line is that not even top performers can expect that continuing to do what got them to market-leading positions will deliver the next phase of growth.  

Some of the common barriers – continuous cycles of tech-driven disruption, relentlessly fickle customers, talent mismatches – are well understood. However, less tangible and often overlooked factors – including lack of C-level clarity and confidence, short-term thinking and a history of unactioned strategies and plans – may be even more hostile to growth. Consider how senior leaders may lose faith in growth strategies when market opportunities shift more rapidly than the organization can pivot, refine its go-to-market approach or reallocate resources. Even when the right strategy is in place, limited ability to execute – or execute at the pace which growth now demands – may undercut returns.  

Because markets move faster than ever, we believe sustainable growth results from: 

• Unlocking compelling customer insights to inform growth strategies 
• Creating relevant, impactful growth moves 
• Executing faster and more efficiently

How Rapid Changes in Customer Behaviors Impact Growth

The customer often has the answer. In today’s volatile markets, growth comes either through a proactive insight-led and customer-back approach, which is more sustainable, or by riding the wave of macroeconomic or societal trends. Unilever proactively changed its portfolio strategy after scoping the impact of the weight-loss drug Ozempic on consumer behavior. Modeling the likely changes in eating habits, Unilever chose to spin off most of its ice cream business, retaining only a few key brands (e.g., Ben & Jerry’s, Magnum).  

During the pandemic, companies like Peloton and Calm realized unprecedented growth as consumers re-evaluated their health and wellness priorities. Both companies have failed to make strategic, post-pandemic pivots to stay relevant.  

For firms that don’t want to leave growth to chance or market timing, success starts with deep insights into customer needs, as Prophet research shows.  

Insights From Prophet Research   

Among innovative companies, 84% have a consumer and market insights capability. 

Among all companies, 37% of leaders say senior executives pay too little attention to customer needs. 

In devising growth strategies, firms should factor in the impact of external macro trends on customers and the opportunities to provide new products and services to help customers navigate them. Even more broadly, executives should reflect on how these changes may influence who their customers are today and who they should be tomorrow.  

Charting the right course forward requires thoughtful decisions across key growth drivers that go beyond customer insight. In other words, firms must ensure that their good ideas are converted from slideware to clear action plans supported by necessary capabilities. Among the questions to address:  

• Who is our target customer?  
• What products, services and experiences should we offer?  
• Why should customers care about our products, brand and purpose?  
• How do they perceive the value we offer? 
• Where and when should we engage customers – via which channels, ecosystems, platforms and partnerships?  
• How will we capture value?  
• What is the optimal operating model to deliver? 

The answers to these questions have short- and long-term implications. The resulting commitments will be ones the organization can sustain for years at a time. They will also determine what firms should do next quarter. Ideally, a clear customer vision will inspire the organization for the future while attentive, dynamic management of action plans will help firms keep up with constantly shifting customer needs and preferences. Firms should plan for frequent refinements and calibrations based on continuous learning about customer behavior, market feedback and competitors’ actions. Prophet research shows that organizations that meaningfully assess and recalibrate growth plans at least monthly are twice as likely to be successful, resilient innovators. Too many firms still think of growth investments as a matter of annual planning.