Growth Insights for CEOs

Winning the Fraud and Cybersecurity Race: A Go-to-Market Blueprint for Competitive Edge
Fraud and cybercrime have become a systemic, trillion-dollar drag on the global economy—but the fight to turn the curve is more than a market opportunity.
Over the past few years, I have worked alongside cybersecurity and fraud-management teams in government, banking, and payments, and nothing is more satisfying than seeing a new solution stop a romance scam or prevent a pensioner from losing their life savings.
Recent Posts

Positioning for Explosive Growth: A CEO’s Guide To Enthusiastic Leadership - Part Three
Thu, Nov 5, 2020 — Knowledge Is Power What’s holding you aloft in 2020? Whether or not you have cracked the code of 2020, most CEOs have spent the year snapping back to a changed reality. In our last blog, we looked at the importance of being engaged, insightful, and plugged in as the “table stakes” of leadership change in turbulent times. But all the engagement in the world is pointless if you don’t know the direction from which your headwinds and tailwinds are coming.

Hiding the Full Value of an Innovation
Wed, Nov 4, 2020 — “If the people don’t want to come out to the ballpark, nobody’s going to stop them.” -Yogi Berra A powerful, sales-producing change that most companies can make quickly: Find messaging that is not working very well, and replace it. This is especially important when marketing an innovation.

Positioning for Explosive Growth: A CEO’s Guide To Enthusiastic Leadership: Part Two
Thu, Oct 29, 2020 — The Four Inhibitors of Engaged Leadership Little known fact about ducks: Though they exude grace as they glide atop the water, ducks hide a little secret just below the surface. For all the poetry they project in our view, ducks are actually shuffling their feet quite quickly to achieve that silky-smooth movement. As a CEO, you know this bifurcated existence all too well. Though you are expected — nee, required — to display a semblance of outward calm, beneath this facade are the fears, insecurities, and realities that come with the job.
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Positioning for Explosive Growth: A CEO’s Guide To Enthusiastic Leadership
Fri, Oct 23, 2020 — In 2020 and beyond, the notion of leadership has been indelibly changed. No longer is it adequate to rule from 30,000 feet, to remain at arms lengths from strategies, and unable to touch tactics with a 10-foot pole. Leadership from a distance, in a time when distance is not just a suggestion, but a mandate, can strike a critical blow to a company that is already likely still trying to divine its direction in a pandemically-impacted landscape.

Selecting a Strategy for Market Leadership: Part Five
Tue, Oct 20, 2020 — Decision Time! Choosing the Right Strategy for Your Business In our previous blog, we discussed in depth the three types of market strategies from which to choose your overall go-to-market direction. As we discussed, the competitive strategy you select must fit with a company’s market, both in terms of geography, and with customer needs. It also must be completely in line with company strengths, abilities, and culture. Pick one of the three, and start positioning the organization as a market leader! Regardless of which option is selected, do not forget the point of all this — to increase business value. The success of a strategy is ultimately measured through cash, not profit.

Selecting a Strategy for Market Leadership: Part Four
Thu, Oct 15, 2020 — Evaluating Your Strategic Options Hopefully, in our last two blogs (Part Two and Part Three), you have learned a great deal about the influence that your industry and coming trends will have on your company’s overall success in the marketplace. Against the backdrop of the keen market analysis we worked through in each of the past two blogs, you now are in a position to make some tough decisions and choices. A competitive strategy must be fact-based and informed by industry analysis. By working through the steps in the previous articles, we laid a solid foundation for this strategy.

Selecting a Strategy for Market Leadership: Part Three
Tue, Oct 6, 2020 — Analyzing the Industry for Key Success Factors In our last blog, we took a look at, and charted, how longer-term trends will impact your company and its customers. Armed with this data, we can now undertake a study of the broader industry. This is a critical step if we are to identify the key success factors (KSFs), and determining how they fit with your company’s strengths and offerings. The work should be undertaken by the full executive team, to ensure diversity in thinking and buy-in to conclusions. This will be a huge help later, in the implementation phase.

Focusing Your Sales Force During an Economic Downturn
Thu, Oct 1, 2020 — By Aurora Toth and Ann Anderson During times of business volatility, companies are forced to make quick decisions about how to deploy their resources – financial and human. While we acknowledge that Sales is an expensive function within an organization – it is a critical one. Times of crisis provide an opportunity to look at how the salesforce is deployed, where it creates the largest impact, areas you may be missing and how to either refine or completely redesign Sales to achieve your business objectives. My colleague, Ann Anderson is the founder at Retail Partner Solutions. Ann has spent 25+ years partnering with America’s largest retailers such as Target, Walmart, Walgreens, Barnes & Noble, Sam’s Club, Costco and more to help CPG brands thrive in-store and on store shelves.

Selecting a Strategy for Market Leadership: Part Two
Tue, Sep 29, 2020 — Customer Needs and Scanning for Trends In the business-to-business (B2B) world, the purchasing process is far more complex than the journey undertaken by an individual consumer. B2B deals tend to be more concentrated and have larger value, and include more people in a higher-stakes battle for large sales. In the first article of the series, we talked about the importance of having a strategy. Understanding the role that the customer and current trends take in influencing the purchasing process is critical to defining your go-to-market strategy. In this blog, we’ll take a deeper look at these influential factors.