Over the years, Gil Shwed, founder and CEO of Check Point Software, and his management team had developed highly effective strategies and had executed their strategies extremely well. However, by 2001, they knew that their rapid success had begun to lead the company into a new phase of growth—a phase that they would need to prepare for both internally and externally. Specifically, Shwed and his team wondered how Check Point could continue to grow its top line, ward off major competitors such as Cisco, continue to meet the needs of its current customers, meet the needs of its rapidly growing base of new customers, and ensure its communication and knowledge transfer processes were aligned with future growth.
