Growth Strategy for Corporate Sustainability

Growth is not always compulsory for a firm. Some of the oldest existing companies are medium sized and continue to prosper. Yet many sustainable companies have acquired a dominant position in their industry because of their growth over time. For them, growth is a consequence and not an objective of strategy. Growth has different motives: gaining as many customers as possible, increasing attractiveness, exploiting capabilities, achieving economies of scale, spreading risks, or answering the will of shareholders and executives. There are four main ways to achieve growth: intensive specialization in the core business, vertical integration, leveraging of existing capacities in new businesses, and complete diversification. Growth is a particular mode of change and it has to be managed aggressively in order to be effective; this is especially the case of external growth where enduring firms have shown to dominate the competence of identifying, acquiring, and integrating other firms. Longevity is a factor of growth, but growth is not always a factor of longevity. With growth come risk of physical saturation, legal risks attached to a dominant position, risks of strategic cataract and astigmatism that blind the vision of the leaders, and the risk of organizational obesity. The experience of sustainable companies shows that the success of a company depends more on its reactivity than its size.