How to identify the next growth driver for your business
- Robin Seidner
- Jan 15
- 3 min read
Updated: Feb 19
If you’re a technology consulting partner in a maturing market, is it time to build adjacent practice expertise into your growth plan?
I was recently reading the 2024 Tercera 30 report, which provides a great review for technology services firms looking to grow and expand implementation and consulting services. It got me thinking: for technology consulting partners deeply invested in a single technology, when is it time to look to expand into new technologies, or into adjacent technologies? As the technology market remains tight, it’s harder to be a successful services firm on one technology. And as more technologies expand into ecosystems, it’s helpful to be a part of more than one ecosystem.
This comes to mind particularly with Tech vendors like Salesforce and Adobe, both market leaders that are without a doubt in a maturing part of the tech stack. Customer demand (and growth opportunities) may shift from basic implementation to more complex integrations, customizations, and value-add services. The opportunity to co-sell licenses with, for example, Salesforce Account Executives is narrower, which means you need to find your own deals or find more work in existing accounts.
This is the perfect time to ask: what do we need to do to maintain revenue and also continue to grow?
The answer:
Building adjacency—whether through integrating complementary technologies, offering new service lines, or offering very specific solutions focused on key problems—can enhance your value proposition and help you differentiate in a competitive landscape.
There are different ways to expand depending on your size, your ability to invest, your existing capabilities and the makeup of your clients.
Where do you start to think about what comes next?
Does it make sense to invest in the next big thing (I’m looking at you, AI)?
Are there consistent risks in your practice that you could solve faster, or significantly reduce the risk?
Are there natural add-ons?
Are you losing clients to other firms because of lack of capability?
Hint: These are all questions that I can help you answer.
Consider customer needs. Have you talked to your customers and discovered what other products they use in their tech stack? Certainly, some of these will not be a great fit for your practice - perhaps it’s too IT-focused, or the people resources are hard to find, or your team doesn’t want to work on it. (If your team is not excited to work on stuff, it will make it harder to retain and motivate them - don’t discount this!) However, if your customers are using other products that could be a natural extension of your offerings, that’s an effective answer for how to grow your business. It’s likely that other customers may see value in the product(s) too, but may have just not considered them.
You’ll still want to understand where your customers are, as the best path with adjacency is to build stickier deeper relationships with existing clients to drive more revenue and more work for your teams. However, opening your exploration to include new tech or expanding your line card could be the next business growth driver for obtaining new customers.
Are you an MSP, digital agency or other services firm looking to grow your business in 2025? Let’s connect. I can help you and/or your executive team identify your next growth drivers as part of an Executive Advisory service package.