Should you invade a new market in search of growth?

I chanced upon an article on the Fast Company blog, and happen to have strong feelings on how companies should get into business development opportunities in new markets.. Here's a copy of the rant that I posted on that website.. :-)

You in your company need to FOCUS, FOCUS, FOCUS

But on what?

To answer that, ask yourself
Is there a basic problem that you can solve for your current customers?
Would your customers expect "YOU" to solve that problem?

To do that, you have to figure out what your brand is all about! Once you have that done, you'll know how to extend your brand.

If you are selling a product, you could sell services around that product and solve customer problems. If you're selling services, you could package some of them together to productise your services. Perhaps there is an activity pretty near your activity - in the client's mind. You could try and explore that activity, start with services and then products.

Chasing new industries in the hope of growth is usually unsuccessful, if your brand does not travel to that industry. I doubt Boeing would try to make cars, or even car components. The brand doesn't travel to automobiles. But it may travel to a select niche - high performance racing cars.

Let brand extension and customer value & perception analysis principles guide your decisions on expansion into new industries.

Hope this helps