According to Harvard Business Publishing, success is often equated with size, but research shows that most sustained growth companies actually boast one or two highly focused core businesses. As an organization spreads itself out and loses focus on its cores, returns decline and in today’s economy it helps to focus on your strengths and position yourself to beat out the big dogs in your industry. Take one-time food conglomerate Pepsi trailing for years behind more focused competitor Coke, or Motorola and Ericsson trying to catch phone-focused Nokia in the cellular market.
Keep this in mind: The few successful companies that become smaller and still create value are those that restructure to focus on a strong core and eventually dramatically increase their growth.