The Agility Factor

Everybody knows that big corporations maneuver like battleships. Held back by their own inertia, they cannot turn quickly when the competitive environment changes.

Everybody also knows that high performance, as measured by shareholder returns, is impossible to sustain over the long term; no company consistently beats the market.

But a recent in-depth study of long-term performance suggests an alternative point of view about business strategy. When the measure of performance is profitability, a few large companies in ev.....