www.strategydynamics.com

First, the constraint may not be demand, but supply. ‘Market forecasts’ are useless here, because markets will grow as fast as providers enable incipient demand to be expressed. People would, for example, flock to decent restaurants in emerging markets, if only they existed. This creates a huge imperative to expand fast – if you don’t, others will capture the opportunity first. You may not even need to offer anything special, just something acceptable (but beware the Starbucks error!) – you can always uprate it later, giving consumers a continuing reason to spend with you. 

Secondly, there will be intense competition to capture such new opportunities, so ‘managing’ competitors is vital. Many rivals will be rubbish, but they can still mess up the market for you – discounting to grab market share, for example, or building excess capacity that will never pay for itself. In the process they destroy profitability, and destroy your investment case. So you need to kill weaker rivals (see how), and deter others . I used to think strategy should be kept secret, but it can be best to be very public about your plans, explain just how powerful you are, leaving the implied message “Yes this is a great opportunity, and yes we are doing very well, but look at just what we have built to give us this power – so don’t even think you can take us on, or you will just get killed.” 

Lastly, recognise that you are not just competing with others in your market, but with other entire industries. Your restaurants may be empty if consumers decide to spend instead on durables, or on low-cost air travel when airlines offer services in your local markets. Tracking how consumers actually are deploying their rising income as this range of spending opportunities widens helps clarify the scale of your opportunity and how to promote your business against alternatives.  

Retail sectors like this make good examples because they are easy to recognise, but the same principles apply in all kinds of other fast-growing markets. Following these principles makes it possible to ‘design the future’ the way you want it to be.   

Seven Ways Forward from Booz & Co’s strategy+business on, with specifics for Manufacturing, Consumer Products, Aerospace and Defense, Telecom, Finance, and general guidance on rebuilding capabilities for long-term growth.

Surviving the Downturn: Lessons from Emerging Markets from Sloan Mgmt Review [title self-explanatory]

Three Opportunities to Seize in the Downturn a blog post from Harvard Business Publishing [HBP] makes the case for two points I’ve raised before [a] that there’s cheap talent on the market right now, and [b] there are cheap opportunities to acquire key assets or entire businesses … which leads to the 3rd point, that there will be new winners and losers out of all this.

How Recessions Shake Up Industries in the Daily Stat from HBP [their link takes you to a different article] reports studies from McKinsey and BCG on how industry leaders fall and new leaders emerge in downturns – a reminder for your strategy to be intentional and targeted about challenging specific existing and new rivals, not just trying in some vague way to do better than others [a shortpiece on this at the end of chapter 5 in my book].

Timing Strategic Moves in the McKinsey Quarterly explains how scenario approaches can help avoid moving too soon or too late in these uncertain times. It’s rather focused on macro-economic and stock-market indicators, rather than [I'd prefer a more assertive stance be taken - choosing what to do and when in order to make the future play out as you want, rather than the passive response implied if not actually stated in this.]

Strategic Planning: Three Tips for 2009 from McKinsey Quarterly explains the value of scenario-based planning, the need to intensify monitoring to detect how the recovery is changing things, and the need I have emphasised to look beyond the crisis. [Shame most firms were not doing enough monitoring before the recession!]

Also some good content in Taking Advantage of Tumultuous Times from Monitor.