Footholds also enable a firm to get traction with future customers while avoiding massive marketing spend.

FORBES: A Foothold Market -- In Rickshaws

To gain further footholds, Google could target narrow, high-profile applications to gain experience and build support.

FORBES: Google��s Job One

Morita and his helpers had an extraordinary success rate in finding these footholds for disruption.

FORBES: Book Excerpt

Click here to receive a book chapter about finding footholds in emerging markets.

FORBES: A Foothold Market -- In Rickshaws

"I think the service is starting to gain footholds with users who see it as a regular alternative to Google, " he wrote in his blog.

BBC: Microsoft increases search share

Private prisons have footholds in about three-quarters of the 50 states.

ECONOMIST: Face value

Although the cannibalization of the traditional media industry continues there are geographic and demographic shifts which could provide key footholds for media firms looking to survive and thrive.

FORBES: Old Media Must Deliver Digital Experiences Consumers Demand

Over the past century, nine pontiffs have overseen an evolution of the church beyond its traditional footholds in Europe and North America to increasing representation in Africa, Latin America and Africa.

WSJ: Cardinals Gather, Facing Varied Agendas

Business is proud of its many footholds abroad.

ECONOMIST: Globalisation through French eyes

Because Vietnam was so isolated during the late 1970s and 1980s, when American brands briefly lost much of their allure, some of those brands are even finding it easier to establish footholds in Vietnam than they have elsewhere.

ECONOMIST: Hanoi Bill

Within the next few years, Renault will use its partner Nissan to re-enter the American market for the third time, and Peugeot, which has broken out of Europe with its big footholds in Brazil and China, will probably follow.

ECONOMIST: The car industry