Many companies are looking to find ways of growing their business. Acquisition is not always possible, and usually relies on obtaining finance - which unless you are Apple Inc., is quite difficult in today’s climate.

Utilising a structured approach to identifying growth opportunities helps to build a view of potential opportunity spaces - which in turn can be combined with relevant technology insights to identify innovation growth platform options.

As with all growth opportunities, there are limited resources and executive teams need to make choices on the most attractive investment opportunities. Having identified the likely opportunities, you need to create opportunity descriptions and implementation plans with the backing of key stakeholders.

Growth platforms tend to encompass short-, medium- and longer-term initiatives where the combined projects and results span multiple years. They need to be well-articulated initiatives that will form ‘potential new business units’ from a portfolio of products and projects. They rarely appear from running brainstorms and ideation sessions on their own.