This week’s focus: The secret to ongoing growth is your ability to identify and deliver new sources of customer value faster and more effectively than your competitors. The good news – and the bad! – is that the level of technological, social and economic change means that all markets – even the most mature ones – generate an almost endless supply of these opportunities.

The next revolution in the TV industry, for instance, will centre on how your TV can become a hub for internet services and all your home’s web and computer-based content. (Last night I amazed myself by being able to stream a film I was watching on my iPad onto my TV screen for the whole family to enjoy.)

But it’s not just in hi-tech industries where these opportunities arise. Waitrose, the up-market grocer, has grown by rapidly expanding its value-focused Essentials range in recent years and Premier Inns and Travelodges have both driven and responded to increases in demand for short, cheap breaks and overnight accommodation.

What are the technological, social and economic changes affecting your customers and markets, and what new opportunities are they generating that you could exploit?

Off The Record: Lose Yourself by Eminem

The moment, you own it, you better never let it go

You only get one shot, do not

Miss your chance to blow

© Stuart Cross 2012. All rights reserved.