A structured path to sustainable growth in community health
Designing a clear, prioritised growth strategy to help a leading community health provider expand services and reinvest in community impact.
Impact:
Delivered a prioritised growth strategy endorsed by the board, enabling confident investment decisions
Identified five high-impact strategic plays and eight quick wins to drive immediate and long-term growth
Shifted the organisation from ad hoc growth to a structured, evidence-based approach
Equipped leadership with a practical roadmap to pursue sustainable expansion and reinvest in community outcomes
Timeframe: 6 weeks
Services provided:
Strategy
Growth strategies
Deliverables:
Growth strategy and prioritised opportunity portfolio – enabled clear, confident decision-making on where to invest
Implementation roadmap – provided a practical path to move from strategy to action
Ecosystem maps – clarified relationships, revenue flows, and areas of opportunity
Opportunity shortlist and prioritisation framework – supported structured evaluation of growth options
Context:
Community health organisations operate in an increasingly complex environment, balancing rising demand, funding uncertainty and the need to deliver sustainable impact.
One of the largest providers of community health services in Victoria, had ambitious plans for growth. Serving diverse and growing communities, they aimed to generate a ‘surplus for purpose’—reinvesting financial gains into services that improve health equity. However, increasing competition, rising operational costs and an uncertain funding landscape made it difficult to determine how to expand in a way that was both practical and sustainable.
While there was strong internal appetite for growth, their approach had been largely ad hoc, making it challenging to prioritise opportunities and confidently invest in the right areas.
WAVE was engaged to identify high-impact growth opportunities and develop a clear, structured strategy to guide both immediate and long-term expansion.
Approach:
To identify the right growth opportunities, we first needed a deep understanding of the organisation’s operating environment. We conducted targeted research to build a comprehensive view of their ecosystem, examining their organisation, customers, competitors, collaborators and broader context. This allowed us to map key relationships, funding flows and service interactions, uncovering previously unseen opportunities such as new service partnerships and underserved markets.
Building on this foundation, we developed a structured approach to identifying growth opportunities that aligned with the organisation’s existing strengths. We explored adjacent products, services, customer groups and delivery channels, ensuring expansion opportunities were both realistic and strategically aligned. This process surfaced a broad set of 90 potential growth options, spanning areas such as new service offerings, expanded delivery models and entry into adjacent markets.
To move from exploration to action, we worked closely with the leadership team to prioritise these opportunities. Through a facilitated workshop, we supported senior leaders to evaluate each option based on its potential to generate surplus, level of implementation effort and overall desirability. This process created alignment across the leadership team and resulted in a clear, prioritised portfolio of opportunities.
We then translated this into a practical growth roadmap, defining five long-term strategic plays alongside eight quick wins that could be implemented immediately. Initiatives ranged from improving operational efficiency through digital channels to expanding access via new service delivery models such as pop-up clinics.
To support confident decision-making and reduce investment risk, we structured each strategic play into staged phases. This provided a clear pathway for testing assumptions, building evidence and progressing initiatives in a controlled and manageable way.
Outcome:
The engagement resulted in a clear, prioritised growth strategy that was formally endorsed by the board, giving the organisation the confidence to move forward with investment and implementation.
The five strategic plays established a strong foundation for long-term growth, while the eight quick wins created immediate momentum by identifying practical initiatives that could be delivered with minimal investment. Together, these provided a balanced approach to achieving both short-term impact and sustained expansion.
Importantly, the work enabled a fundamental shift in how the organisation approaches growth. Moving from an ad hoc model to a structured, evidence-based strategy, the organisation is now better equipped to evaluate opportunities, prioritise investment and align decisions with its long-term vision.
Following the engagement, the organisation has progressed several of the identified opportunities, including further exploration of privatised offerings, expansion of National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) services, and the development of complementary services for households. These initiatives position the organisation to generate sustainable surplus and reinvest in improving health outcomes across the communities they serve.
