Well, I hope you enjoyed the first part where we talked about squeezing the lemon. Of course, it’s rare that a sequal ever lives up to the original – but I’ll give it a go.

So this time we’re going to consider the pie; how to grow the pie, specifically. The first part talked about the lemon as your customer base, and the anology of squeezing the lemon was how to get the most juice (business) out of those lemons and not let the lemon shrivel up in the fridge.

So, squeezing the lemon was all about getting the most from your existing customers in a more direct and short term way, and growing the pie is about maximising profit and creating value for both customers and suppliers as part of a longer term strategy. This is done by;

• Differentiation – what makes you different/better than your customers? Look at; product, pricing, distribution, advertising and promotion, selling, core competencies, competitive advantage, USP’s
• Added Value – what aspect of your product/service adds real value for the customer?
• Value Chain – monitor and feedback performance up stream and downstream to continually improve.

The key elements of growing the pie are;

• Constantly strive to deliver value for the customer by improving your overall proposition.
• Understand the supply and value chains and learn how to leverage key aspects to create added value and differentiation.
• Change the mindset of both your company and your customer base. This is more important than immediate short term gains.

So what does The Corporate Gifts Company do to grow it’s pie? Good question, and a challenging one too.  Well, we talk to our customers constantly about how they find our service and product, what they liked and what they didn’t like; we encourage testimonials (good or bad) and we have used that feedback over the past 18 years to hone our service and quality levels so that we give our customers exactly what is most important to them; reliable service, consistent quality (we have the international quality standard ISO9000), appropriate and quality promotional branding, and responsible business practices (see our CSR – Corporate Social Responsibility – policy.

Thanks to The Cranfield School of Management’s BGP (Business Growth Development) programme for inspiration.