For the mature enterprise, stagnation is a silent predator. It doesn’t arrive with the sudden shock of a market crash; instead, it manifests as a slow erosion of momentum, a plateauing of revenues, and a culture that prioritizes “defending the moat” over “building the bridge.” However, a definitive global study by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) of 848 firms reveals that stagnation is merely a season, not a final sentence. Of those firms, 99 successfully engineered a “breakout,” moving from flatlines to significant, sustained growth.
As the Harvard Business Review highlights, these “Breakout Growers” didn’t rely on macroeconomic luck. They executed specific strategic pivots. For Philippine conglomerates—many of which are decades-old family-led institutions—these global lessons offer a vital mirror. By examining the five strategic levers of the BCG study through the lens of local titans like SM Investments, Ayala Corporation, and Globe Telecom, we can chart a path for the mature firm’s second act.
The Five Levers of Rejuvenation
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Double Down on the Core
The most frequent mistake a stagnating firm makes is “di-worse-ification”—fleeing its core business to enter unfamiliar markets. The BCG study found that successful firms often do the opposite: they consolidate power in their primary theater.
SM Investments Corporation (SMIC) SMIC is the master of the “Core Consolidation” play. While others might have looked to exit traditional brick-and-mortar retail during the rise of e-commerce, SMIC doubled down on its core physical footprint. They expanded into provincial “geographies” where modern retail was underserved and increased “capacities” by integrating residential developments (SMDC) directly into their mall ecosystems. By acquiring smaller regional players and expanding their logistics backbone, they used their scale to make their core business an impenetrable fortress.
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Shift the Business Mix to High-Growth Pockets
Mature firms often find themselves anchored to legacy sectors that are shrinking or commoditizing. The “99 survivors” were ruthless in reallocating capital toward high-growth niches.
Ayala Corporation Ayala is a case study in the “Strategic Mix Shift.” For over a century, the group was synonymous with real estate and banking. However, sensing stagnation in traditional infrastructure, Ayala made a bold move into the Energy and Health sectors. Through ACEN, they pivoted heavily toward renewable energy, shifting their “business mix” away from coal and toward the global green energy boom. Similarly, their move into healthcare via AC Health represents a deliberate shift into a “high-growth pocket” that complements their property and banking ecosystems.
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Change How You Sell (New Channels & Approaches)
Sometimes the product is excellent, but the “Go-to-Market” strategy is a relic of the past. Revitalized firms overhaul their sales engines to meet the modern customer where they live: online and on-demand.
Globe Telecom Faced with the stagnation of traditional “voice and SMS” revenues, Globe didn’t just look for new customers; they changed how they interacted with existing ones. They pioneered the shift from a traditional telco to a “techco.” By creating GCash, they introduced a new approach to financial services. They transformed their sales channel from a simple SIM-card provider to a holistic digital lifestyle platform. This change in “how they sell” connectivity—bundling it with entertainment, finance, and health—reignited a subscriber base that had reached a saturation point.
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Create New Offerings (Adjacent Innovation)
Growth often comes from asking: “What else does my customer need?” Breakout growers leverage their existing trust to launch “adjacencies”—products that sit right next to their current offerings.
Consider a mature firm like Jollibee Foods Corporation (JFC). When domestic growth faced natural limits, they didn’t just sell more fried chicken; they created “new offerings” by acquiring global brands like Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf and Tim Ho Wan. They utilized their supply chain expertise to offer different culinary experiences to the same “eating out” demographic, effectively growing their share of the consumer’s wallet without needing to invent an entirely new industry.
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Bold Action Due to Crisis
A crisis provides the political cover to do what should have been done years ago. The BCG study found that firms that recovered often used a “burning platform”—a regulatory change or economic shock—to force radical restructuring. Many Philippine firms used the 2020-2022 period to shed non-performing assets and digitize operations at a pace that would have been impossible during years of steady, 3% growth.
The Three-Step Process for Getting Started
Strategic theory without execution is just a daydream. The BCG study ends with a pragmatic three-step framework for leaders of mature firms:
Step 1: Confront the “Brutal Facts”
Leadership must move past the “vanity metrics” of the past. If the stock price is flat and the market share is eroding, the first step is a public (or at least internal) admission that the current trajectory is a dead end. Leaders must be learners, willing to dismantle their own legacy.
Step 2: Selection of the Strategic Lever
You cannot pull all five levers at once without breaking the organization. A firm with a massive balance sheet, like San Miguel Corporation, might choose Lever 1 (Acquisition/Capacity). A firm with a massive data set might choose Lever 3 (New Channels). The choice must be based on the firm’s unique “unfair advantage.”
Step 3: Commitment to “Always-On” Transformation
The 99 firms that stayed successful didn’t stop once growth returned. They built “transformation offices”—permanent teams tasked with scanning the horizon for the next pocket of stagnation. They realized that growth is not a destination, but a muscle that must be continuously exercised.
The Leader’s Mandate
In the Philippine context, where many firms are entering their “mature” phase, the lesson is clear: Stagnation is a management failure, not a market inevitability. Whether it is SM doubling down on its core, Ayala shifting its mix, or Globe reinventing its channel, the common thread is a leadership team that refuses to be a bystander to their own decline.
The journey from stagnation to breakout requires a “Mastermind” mindset—the ability to share problems transparently and discuss solutions ruthlessly.
