Abstract
A company's long-term success can be evaluated in terms of the firm's sustainable value development. Growth is the only possibility to increase a company's value. Thus, to grow an create value always has been and always will be every company's primary goal. The question is: how can a company profitably grow? Are there limits to growth? Which factors compromise growth and how can we overcome them? In this paper a new approach is presented, which helps small and medium sized companies to overcome growth limits and to follow a sustainable business development. It bases on five hypotheses that form the so called "3C-model" and provides a systematic development and growth of a company in a network of core competence cells (3C). A practical example helps to illustrate the approach.