Is Your Company Fit for Growth?
A more strategic approach to costs can help you prepare for the next round of expansion.
by Deniz Caglar, Jaya Pandrangi, and John Plansky

http://www.strategy-business.com/article/12205?gko=ebe6b

Three very simple but powerful questions. Those who have taken our Driving Organic Growth class know we spend considerable time addressing these issues  (http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/execed/Programs/ORGGROW.aspx). These three questions should dominate leadership's time in the context of driving growth

Is your company fit for growth? Many companies today are not. The way they manage costs and deploy their most strategic resources is preventing the expansion they need. But they don’t realize it — at least not yet. 

How can you tell if your company is fit for growth? Here is a simple, three-question diagnostic: 

• Do you have clear priorities, focused on strategic growth, that drive your investments?
• Do your costs line up with those priorities? In other words, do you deploy your resources toward them efficiently and effectively?
• Is your organization set up to enable you to achieve those priorities? 

….The easiest way to answer these questions is to imagine the opposite. 

.....If you do not have clear growth priorities, there are several warning signs. You have so many initiatives that you can’t remember them all…
…If your costs are not deployed appropriately, that’s also painfully apparent — especially in the amount you spend on nonessentials….
….If you don’t have a well-designed organization that is evident as well. You are not nimble enough to move quickly, or aligned enough to work in harmony. It takes a week to get a sales quote approved, while your competition wins the business. Information is not readily available to the people who need it.