We have written extensively on the strategic challenge of identifying and taking advantage of new growth opportunities. In 2011, Atlee Valentine Pope, President and CEO of Blue Canyon Partners, co-authored the book, CoDestiny: Overcome Your Growth Challenges by Helping Your Customers Overcome Theirs. This book is a culmination of over two decades of experience working with leading business-to-business (B2B) organizations to develop their growth strategies. And in our white paper, Five Growth Lessons, we detail five fundamental lessons for growth we continually apply across our consulting engagements:

• Honor the Customer Chain: Developing and studying the different routes to market provides insights on where there are potential new markets or new pathways to market to take advantage of
• Create Value to Capture Value: To grow in B2B markets you need to develop value propositions that make your customers financially better off
• Segment on Purchase Decision Making: Understanding the different factors that drive a customer’s purchase decision identifies the strategy that will yield success
• Plan Competitive Responses: How to stay ahead of competitors and respond to disruptive elements depends on your position and the segments you play in
• Relationships are Strategic: Relationships enable strategy, and building relationship competencies can drive growth

While our insights from both CoDestiny and Five Growth Lessons have universal significance across various product- and service-oriented B2B markets, this paper explores the unique application of CoDestiny tenets and the first two growth lessons toward establishing growth strategies in business services, specifically. By sharing examples of companies who have successfully expanded their business by offering value-added business services for their customers, we hope to inspire you to consider new approaches to driving growth at your own company.