DECISION SUPPORTED
Which growth option offers the best trade-off between potential, time, control, risk and reversibility?
08 · Compare
Compare growth strategies under real constraints
DECISIONS SUPPORTED
Which growth option offers the best trade-off between potential, time, control, risk and reversibility?
- 01Enter a market
- 02Build, buy or partner
- 03Sequence options
- 04Define a stop rule
ORIGINAL ASSET
Growth comparator
Makes the ranking sensitive to weights and shows the assumptions that reverse the decision.
INPUTSOptionsCriteriaWeightsDependenciesScenarios
→OUTPUTSRankingRobustnessSwitching thresholdsEvidence plan
DECISION LANDMARK
Move from the subject to the choice it supports.
ASSET TO USE
Growth comparator: Makes the ranking sensitive to weights and shows the assumptions that reverse the decision.
NEXT ELEMENT TO EXAMINE
Market penetrationExplore →Treat growth as a choice among distinct routes
Market penetration, adjacent markets, product development, partnerships and acquisition do not expose the organisation to the same commitments. A comparison starts by defining each route, its decision horizon and the option that is deliberately not pursued.
- Route considered
- Scope
- Commitment
- Rejected alternative
Compare potential with access and execution conditions
A large theoretical opportunity does not establish that it is accessible or profitable. Each criterion needs a definition, a source or assumption, a time horizon and a confidence level. The displayed ranking is conditional on these inputs, not a prediction of performance.
- Potential
- Access
- Required capability
- Confidence
Design reversibility before committing resources
A staged option specifies the evidence needed before the next commitment, the owner of the test and the threshold that pauses or stops investment. Dependencies, integration costs and competitive reactions remain visible instead of being averaged into a single score.
- Evidence gate
- Owner
- Stop threshold
- Review date
VALIDATION DOSSIER
State the decision contract
Use the question “Which growth option offers the best trade-off between potential, time, control, risk and reversibility?” as a contract: name the owner, deadline, scope and alternatives before collecting more material. The comparison treats penetration, adjacency, internationalisation, build, buy, partner and exit as conditional options rather than a single growth plan. Record what is deliberately outside scope, who can challenge the framing and what consequence follows from postponement. This prevents an attractive framework, actor list or market story from silently replacing the decision that the analysis is meant to support.
- Owner and deadline
- Comparable alternatives
- Explicit boundary
- Cost of delay
SOURCES AND FOUNDATIONS
Review conditions remain part of the decision.
- Ansoff, Strategies for Diversification, 1957 (opens in a new tab)Foundational framework for distinguishing product-market growth routes; it does not determine the appropriate route for a specific organisation.
- OECD, Competition Assessment Toolkit (opens in a new tab)Official guidance for making competition, barriers and market effects explicit when assessing an option.
GO FURTHER
Review conditions remain part of the decision.
01
Market penetration
02
Adjacent markets
03
Internationalisation
04
Acquisition
05
Partnership
06