Get the big picture.  Operate at the right level for your company and your industry.

•    Early Stage.  You are finding your reason for being.  Now is the time to be investing heavily in product or service development.   You also lay the early foundations for other areas.
•    Rapid Growth.  You have been discovered.  The market likes what they see.  Now is the time to grab all that you can.  You want to entrench your position.  You may spend more in many operating areas to get as much market share as possible.
•    Mature.  Now is the time to harvest.  Reap the benefits of the hard work you did in the earlier stages.  You can fight for more but it will have to come out of competitor’s hide.  You may put more into marketing to grab more market share.
•    Declining.  There is still more money to be made.  You have to decide to stay or bolt.  You may need to scale back a number of areas to remain profitable. 

To be the most successful:

•    Realize what stage you are in.  Knowing where you stand is half the battle.
•    Understand the key skills needed in each stage.  Build your talents ahead of time to be ready.
•    Anticipate the turns in the market.  Decide ahead what would signal a shift and watch for it.  Be ready to make moves faster than your competition.  You may have gotten all the growth you could handle with little effort.  There will come a time, though, when the going gets tougher.  You really need a strong marketing area to keep going when the industry matures.
•    Know when you need to scale back.  It is tough when an area has done so well for you.  However, you could be throwing money away if you keep on keeping on.  Sure product development came up with great new ideas that propelled your growth.  But in a declining market, you just cannot get the same bang for the buck.  You need to cut back.