Growth

So the title of this blog is "Consumer Driven Growth" so I think it might be appropriate to start of with some initial thoughts on growth.

First, growth is a result, an outcome of something done successfully. So growth itself cannot be a strategy - it is the result of getting something right. What is the source - the "something" that is being done "right".

I was about 15 years into my learning journey when I stumbled upon a book that has had almost as much influence on my thinking as "In Search of Excellence" and it has been critical in helping me form my views on growth and what makes a business successful.

"Value Migration" by Adrian Slowotzky was first published in the mid 90's and has the beauty of being grounded in a relatively simple two part idea.

1. How do we create value?
2. How can we capture it?

Slowotzky's basic point is that growth is simply nothing more than value flowing into the firm and that if we go beyond looking at just the numbers - Apple's market cap grew over 100 % in 2007, and try and understand WHY that grow is happening we can learn a lot.

in my next post I will put forth some ideas about why Apple has been able to both create and capture value - and why this is likely to continue for at least the next few years.