Recently I have been involved in the discussion how opposites can be glued together within one term and how much this just doesn’t make sense.
And the best example I can think of is PROFITABLE GROWTH.
Yeah, I know, I will be the first one to raise the hand using this term in the past many times, but frankly, looking back now – this just doesn’t make sense!
Either you go for GROWTH (and will invest and cultivate and you are convinced that fruits will be coming along the way).
Or you go for PROFIT and then it is only about the decision that we have invested enough, we will keep it floating, live and thriving – but we do not invest anymore as much as at the beginning, because this is should be paying our bills now. We are not growing anymore…
I just can’t think about the example where both have been realistically achieved – and I do not have to go for such a big examples as Amazon, which is on its GROWTH path and didn’t see any profit yet. There are plenty of examples around me and I am sure about you as well. Brands we afraid to abandon, we keep investing in them, because we always did that. Or segments we would love to see really big, but can’t overspend, because the percentage (!%) profitability would be way below our average. That total $ value invested would be proportionally incomparable – that is another story (and another line in overall P&L). Or that promising channel everybody sees becoming big, but we are not going for growth, because we want both – profitable growth…
And no, I do not think 2% or 3% can be called profitable growth. That is called following the category growth, being in line with the inflation. That can be called profit, but not growth.
What are your thoughts? What is your favorite “overused” term, which just doesn’t make sense, doesn’t matter how much it is pushed within the organizations? Let me know, I would be really curious!
Patrik
PS: Love the description at wikipedia 😉
“Term emerged in the early 80’s, aimed at seducing the financial community…”