It is easy to see opportunities outside the “home base” often easier than seeing them close to home. However, success comes with exploiting potential in existing markets before you “export” resources to chasing new ones. Chase market penetration, cost reduction, value and innovation in your home and adjacent markets before you bet the farm on a new one.
These closer to home opportunities are rarely as sexy as building a business in a new area, but often they come with less risk, and investment, and usually a greater payoff.
Innovation is front and centre in this process of leveraging the existing base, but it is the grunt work of implementation, continuous innovation in small ways, and focus that will win.
My definition of marketing, not found in any textbook I have read is:
“Marketing is the identification, development, protection and leveraging of competitive advantage”
I have found if you apply this definition to all the activities of an enterprise, looking at each for its contribution to at least one of these parameters, your marketing focus will be crystal clear, and the process of sorting out strategy, and the supporting allocation of resources will be considerably eased.
