The high growth business is the business that sees the big picture. It's a business that understands what's critical in its sector both now and for the future. It's a company that focuses hard on those areas that are essential to its success. The high growth professional services business will be focused on delivering first class services that delight its clients and on marketing, rather than focused on cost control. Tight cost control is important but not absolutely vital to such businesses. Similarly a high technology start-up will be focused on technological break throughs and securing market share - rather than on low cost manufacturing. Efficient manufacturing isn't yet critical - it may become so when the product reaches a later stage of its life cycle.
The high growth business does therefore have a strategy - even if it's not always written down in a neatly packaged document labelled "Business Plan". Furthermore the management team of a high growth company is:-
Outward facing - thinking about trends in the industry, gaps in the market, how the market is changing, where do opportunities exist. The team is continually talking to customers.
Capturing feedback - from customers, specifiers, distributors and from anyone who is involved in shaping the industry. In this way the company stays ahead of the game, spots opportunities early and doesn't lose sight of the big picture i.e. what the business needs to do really well in order to outperform the competition.