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CEOs are critical for determining market scope

A CEO doesn't just make important business decisions: He or she can also help to define the company's main markets. 

This means deciding on a plan for growing the business and, just as importantly, setting boundaries for what areas it won't enter into. While all members of the c-level staff can give input on this matter, it's the CEO who can have the most say on which markets will get the highest priority.

A. G. Lafley, CEO of Procter & Gamble, tackled this topic in a 2009 article for Harvard Business Review. He said that his work at the head of his company in the early 2000's was improved when he set clear boundaries.

To do this, he asked himself which entities were most important, and which markets for P&G's global business had the highest value. At the same time, he had to decide which areas were less fruitful, which led to the company abandoning weaker brands in the food and home cleaning sectors.

In an article from last year for the same source, Angela Ahrendts, CEO of British clothing company Burberry, described a similar experience. She said that when she took over the business, she made a decision to focus on the brand history and build off of existing supporters.

"To strengthen our retail operation, we decided to focus on markets where our competitors already had a presence, signaling the right kind of consumers to support a luxury brand," she said. "As our first blueprint for expansion, we identified every market in the world where two of our peers had stores and we had none." 

Both of these stories show the importance of finding a CEO willing to establish a clear business outline and steer the business to those with the most opportunity.

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