he “Alternative Corporate Growth Strategies” grid, which I originally learned as the “Product Market Growth Matrix,” is an excellent tool to learn. When companies experience a drop in sales in their main (sometimes their only) product or product line, they sometimes are at a loss to find a way to keep growing. Used correctly, managers will examine how they might encourage more sales to current customers in current markets, take their current successful products and/or services to other markets, develop additional products/services, or grow in new ways (i.e., attacking new markets with new combinations of products and services, which is much riskier). This exercise will allow you to examine current and past growth strategies for one of the companies listed. To clearly separate past growth strategies implemented (i.e., ways the company grew to get to where it is today) from those being implemented or planned for the future (i.e., ways the company is growing via its current operations and/or announcements of new products, acquisitions, etc. that will be done in the future), usedetails such as the year, product name, product line name, state name, country name, continent name, process name, etc. (Examples: 1.Market Penetration–Starbucks launched a mobile phone app in 2010 to speed up ordering, allowing more sales at current stores. 2.Diversification–Deere developed its first consumer lawn care products in the 1970s.) Sometimes an example could go in two different cells, depending on what the company said/says about the initiative involved. Also, the year something happens/happened is very important, as an acquisition, for example, in a certain year can be used as a base from which to launch any of the other types of strategies in the ensuing years.