9 Business Growth Momentum Killers You Cannot Afford

One of the challenges I believe every business encounters is building momentum and continuing to grow, after your rollout burst of activity. In my entrepreneur mentoring experience, I have often seen early momentum turn to frustration as growth problems overwhelm the team, and sales fail to scale. A question I often get asked is how to anticipate and avoid known key momentum killers?

I know these challenges can come from a number of directions, both inside and outside your own organization, so I was pleased to see a definitive list summarized in a new book, “Triple Fit Strategy: How to Build Lasting Customer Relationships and Boost Growth,” by Christoph Senn and Mahak Gandhi.

These authors come with great academic credentials from INSEAD, as well as practical experience from sharing their success framework in the real world. I will summarize here their view of key momentum killers and how to overcome them, with my own insights added:

1. Misaligned strategies with multiple stakeholders. In today’s increasingly complex environment with many stakeholders, your growth strategies are often poorly structured as part of the corporate strategy process, if articulated at all. We recommend forward-looking account plans for key suppliers and customers with a value-creation perspective.

2. No executive sponsor for key supplier relationships. The executive sponsor is a required interface between the two companies, orchestrating the various teams involved to realize the business momentum in the most empowering ways. These “growth champions” are needed to provide an indelible impact through customer-centric focus.

3. Strategic supplier communications breakdown. Open and fair communication is required to create new opportunities and resolve the conflicts associated with the delivery of complex solutions in a difficult environment. We recommend regularly scheduled supplier meetings including sponsors, to resolve new and existing scaling issues.

4. Product-centric thinking versus value creation. Putting products before customers is a huge limitation when it comes to finding new sources of growth. You need to shift to a value-creation mindset to identify new sources of value beyond the products, defining new joint value growth propositions. This enables solutions that are customer-centric.

5. Unscalable or inefficient value-chain processes. Through challenging times, the strength of processes is tested, and the companies find out which really perform under changing conditions, including growth initiatives. Optimizing the value-chain processes to overcome inefficiencies and cost overruns is critical to sustaining momentum and growth.

6. Incompatible common systems with a key supplier. Daily business between you and key suppliers requires many integrated systems, including IT, financial, and legal. Multiple practices go into keeping systems compatible and scalable, including regular communication, a common strategy, and team collaboration to resolve problems quickly.

7. Local team unprepared for growth and expansion. You need dedicated teams that think locally and act globally, enabling effective collaboration and mutual growth with strategic accounts. Make sure they have the right skills, training, and dedication to adapt to the challenges of more complex environments and add value to both organizations.

8. Stifling organizational structures hinder suppliers. Organizational silos and overly complex structures hinder key suppliers from working effectively with your business as you grow. You may need joint governance teams and help from executive sponsors to simplify and focus both organizations on strategic growth initiatives and efficiency.

9. Lack of knowledge sharing on key technologies. Continuous knowledge sharing is critical to the realization of joint innovation plans and operational challenges. Technology by its very nature makes knowledge sharing a necessary focus to assure process cost effectiveness, operational stability, future flexibility, and continued growth momentum.

I feel strongly that today is the time for companies to realize that they need more than a transactional buyer-seller relationship with key suppliers and partners. Instead, make it your priority to work as a team, collaborating on decisions around planning, execution, and resources to orchestrate growth together. The result will be a win-win for all parties, including customers.