What drives sustainable business growth? It is not just about adding more staff or resources to produce more, but making better use of the resources you already have. This balance between growth and efficiency is often elusive but essential for long-term success. While increasing turnover and profit are the ultimate goal, the efficiency with which they are achieved is often overlooked. Total Factor Productivity (TFP) measures how efficiently a company utilizes its resources—capital, labor, energy, materials, and services—to produce output. In the face of rising costs and resource constraints, understanding the importance of productivity growth is more critical than ever.
To illustrate the important interplay of growth and efficiency, we have developed the “Productivity Zoo” framework, which uses familiar animal archetypes to represent different combinations of revenue growth and TFP growth. For example, an “Eagle” represents a business achieving both high revenue growth and high productivity gains, making it a gold standard for sustainable business growth.
By classifying businesses into these archetypes, we can better understand their strategic positioning and identify the requisite steps for their improvement.
The Productivity Zoo Framework
The Productivity Zoo™ framework categorizes businesses based on their performance in two dimensions: revenue growth (vertical axis) and TFP growth (horizontal axis). Each archetype represents a unique combination of these factors, offering insight into the company’s operational and strategic state.
| TFP Growth → ↓ Revenue Growth | Negative | Low | High |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | Elephant: Rapid revenue growth at the cost of declining productivity. | Lion: Expanding rapidly with modest productivity gains. | Eagle: High revenue growth and high productivity growth. |
| Low | Koala: Modest revenue growth but declining productivity. | Tortoise: Modest revenue growth and steady productivity improvements. | Beaver: Significant improvement in productivity while growing revenue modestly. |
| Negative | Zombie: Shrinking in both revenue and productivity. | Crab: Revenue is shrinking but productivity is improving. | Phoenix: Revenue is shrinking, but productivity is improving significantly. |
Archetypes Explained
The Productivity Zoo™ archetypes offer a lens through which to view the strategic positioning of businesses. Each archetype represents a unique combination of revenue growth and TFP growth, symbolized by an animal that embodies these characteristics. These explanations provide deeper insights into the strengths, weaknesses, and potential strategies for companies within each category. By understanding these archetypes, businesses can better identify their current state and chart a path forward.
Elephant
An Elephant is a company experiencing rapid revenue growth, but at the cost of declining productivity. It is often a victim of its own success—growing faster than its internal structures can handle. This pattern may arise from “inorganic growth pains” pertaining to mergers and acquisitions, but it can also result from the “growth stampede” of expanding quickly by increasing inputs—such as labor or capital—without improving efficiency. While this growth can be exciting, unchecked inefficiency may lead to higher costs, operational bottlenecks, and diminishing returns.
To ensure sustainable growth, Elephants must take time to improve productivity, streamline processes, and resolve integration challenges.
Lion
A Lion is a company experiencing rapid revenue growth, accompanied by modest productivity improvements. This pattern often reflects a growth-first mindset, where the focus on expansion outpaces operational improvements. Lions are agile and competitive, thriving on momentum, but they face a hidden risk—if growth slows, inefficiencies may surface, eroding profitability, and the Lion may “miss the gazelle.” Their long-term success depends on balancing growth with operational improvements.
With patience and discipline, Lions can balance output with productivity by optimizing processes, leveraging technology, and building scalable systems to sustain momentum and evolve into Eagles—achieving both high revenue growth and significant productivity improvement.
Eagle
An Eagle is a company experiencing high revenue growth alongside high productivity improvements. Eagles represent the ideal combination of high growth and efficiency improvement, where the company significantly increases its overall outputs while also gaining major productivity improvement. These companies achieve more with less—growing rapidly and more efficiently, improving operations while expanding their market presence.
To maintain and accelerate growth, Eagles should continue to reinvest their gains in innovation and productivity improvement, creating a virtuous cycle of sustainable, productivity-driven growth. This may involve further investments in technology, talent, and processes to develop and enhance products and to become increasingly competitive. Eagles should also explore strategic partnerships, acquisitions, or new business models to unlock additional revenue. By staying agile and focusing on both efficiency and expansion, Eagles can soar to new heights, even becoming market leaders in their industries.
Koala
A Koala is a company experiencing modest revenue growth while facing declining productivity. It may appear stable on the surface, but underlying inefficiencies are gradually eroding its profitability and competitiveness. This pattern often reflects complacency, reliance on legacy systems, or difficulties in adapting to change. Eating eucalyptus leaves may suffice for now, but this narrow diet may turn out to be insufficient as the business environment evolves.
Koalas risk becoming stagnant if they fail to address their efficiency challenges. To remain competitive, they must identify and eliminate inefficiencies, modernize processes, and invest in technology and innovation. Without decisive action, Koalas may drift toward more vulnerable states, but with focused efforts, they can stabilize productivity and build a stronger foundation for growth.
Tortoise
A Tortoise is a company experiencing modest revenue growth alongside steady productivity improvements. Its progress is slow and deliberate, prioritizing efficiency and stability over rapid expansion. Tortoises often avoid risk by sticking to internal resources and tend to be conservative with investments, favoring incremental gains over bold moves. However, their shield may be too sturdy for their own good: scaling and growth may be limited by process rigidity or manual workflows. While this approach helps them maintain stability, it may also lead to missed opportunities in faster-moving markets.
To accelerate growth without sacrificing stability, Tortoises should reduce process rigidity through more scalable systems. They can also form strategic partnerships to share risks and expand capabilities beyond internal resources. Additionally, targeted investments—such as pilot projects or new market testing—can help Tortoises explore growth opportunities cautiously while preserving their operational discipline and incremental approach.
Beaver
A Beaver is a company experiencing modest revenue growth while achieving significant productivity improvements. Known for their discipline and focus, Beavers prioritize efficiency and operational excellence over rapid expansion. While they are ambitious to grow, they plan their moves carefully. They excel at refining processes, streamlining workflows, and reducing costs, often laying a solid foundation for future scalability. However, the dam can become even too watertight: Beavers’ pragmatic focus on efficiency may sometimes come at the expense of bold growth strategies, leaving untapped opportunities for market expansion.
To catalyze growth, Beavers can build on their efficiency foundation by exploring measured growth strategies such as new products or services, technology-driven scaling, strategic partnerships, and pilot projects to test new markets. By probing these strategies, Beavers can balance efficiency with growth and evolve into Eagles—achieving high growth in both productivity and revenue.
Zombie
A Zombie is a company experiencing declining revenue and shrinking productivity, often signaling deep structural weaknesses and operational challenges. It may be stuck in survival mode, unable to generate the efficiency gains or market momentum needed to reverse its decline. Zombies typically face issues such as outdated business models, poor cost control, weak customer demand, or failure to adapt to market shifts. Reactive measures such as cost-cutting or short-term fixes generally fail to address the internal rot that continues to decay efficiency. Over time, this fragile state can create a vicious cycle of underperformance and, ultimately, collapse.
To revive performance, Zombies need urgent action, starting with diagnosing root causes, cutting inefficiencies, and stabilizing operations. They should focus on core strengths, streamline unprofitable activities, and pivot toward viable markets or revenue streams. In some cases, radical restructuring—such as leadership changes or asset sales—may be necessary to avoid collapse and pave the way for recovery.
Crab
A Crab is a company experiencing declining revenue but improving productivity. Much like a crab moving sideways, these companies often appear to be repositioning rather than moving forward. With their protective shell, these companies are focused on defending their position and shoring up internal processes to survive. They use their mighty scissors to cut costs and shed unprofitable parts of the business to stabilize their foundations. While this focus on efficiency gains may give the appearance of retreat, it can also represent deliberate restructuring to prepare for future growth.
To not just survive but thrive, Crabs must use both their defensive armor and scissors as a weapon. By reinforcing their stability with efficient processes and evolve from defenders to formidable competitors, eventually growing into Beavers or Eagles—achieving both high productivity and expansion. This may involve redirecting resources to high-potential areas, targeting niche markets, or investing in innovation to create new revenue streams. Crabs may also explore strategic partnerships, alliances, or market testing to expand cautiously while maintaining their lean and efficient operations.
Phoenix
A Phoenix is a company experiencing declining revenue but rapid productivity improvements. Like the mythical bird, these companies are often in the midst of transformation, shedding inefficiencies, outdated processes, or unprofitable segments to rise from the ashes. While their current revenue decline may suggest distress, their efficiency gains signal a foundation for a rebirth and a launchpad for growth.
To reignite growth, Phoenixes must scale carefully within their newly optimized operations without compromising efficiency. Growth strategies may include expanding into new segments, enhancing product offerings, or developing new products to capitalize on their leaner new structure. Phoenixes should also explore strategic partnerships and pilot projects to test new ideas while maintaining operational discipline. By focusing on growth execution that aligns with their transformed foundation, Phoenixes can truly soar as Eagles as they scale effectively.
Conclusion
The Productivity Zoo™ framework offers valuable insight into the balance between growth and efficiency, allowing you to better understand your company’s position and the steps needed to move forward. Whether you’re an Elephant struggling with “growth pains,” a Phoenix poised for new growth, or a Zombie in need of a dramatic turnaround transformation, the Zoo will help you strategically orient and navigate your company.
A general rule for businesses seeking sustainable success is to first move right, then up in the Zoo: to begin by focusing on efficiency gains before actively pursuing revenue growth. Achieving operational excellence and stabilizing productivity creates a solid foundation for long-term growth. Once the business is operating efficiently, it can be sustainably scaled up. By following this efficiency-first principle, you can avoid the trap of growing too quickly without the internal systems to support it.
Which animal represents your business?
Understanding where you are and identifying the right steps to move forward will help you balance growth and efficiency, setting the stage for resilient and sustainable growth. You are probably well aware whether your revenue is growing slowly, quickly, or declining, but do you know how your company’s Total Factor Productivity (TFP) is evolving?
Sign up for a free consultation and we will help you uncover your company’s archetype animal and provide insights into relevant growth strategies!
