Abstract: Company growth can be dependent on various factors, which can result in either consistent success or inconsistent performance. In this article, Zook and Allen study twenty-five companies that are leaders in “sustainable growth performance” within their industries. They found that most sustained, profitable growth comes when a company pushes out the boundaries of its core business into an adjacent space. However, it is also important that companies are extremely disciplined and apply rigorous screens before they make any adjacency moves. Additionally, successful growth companies develop a formula for expanding those boundaries in predictable, repeatable ways over period of time. Repeatability allows the company to systematize the growth and, by doing so, take advantage of learning-curve effects.  
 
Authors: Chris Zook and James Allen

Published: December 2003

Link: Harvard Business Review