Less than a fifth of public companies have been able to consistently grow shareholder value in one of the most volatile business climates in memory, according to Accenture research. These companies know how to deliver results against current expectations, and know how to create future growth. In short, they appear able to balance today and tomorrow, when measured against multiple time horizons.

Accenture evaluated high performance in individual companies by both qualitative and quantitative measures. Despite their differences to the generalist eye, our research shows that these companies share common characteristics. They:
- Adopt innovative approaches to growth.
- Effectively allocate IT resources to drive increases in market capitalization.
- Implement integrated merger, acquisition and alliance strategies that quickly capture market and cost benefits.
- Know how to extract value from intangible assets.
- Have an extraordinary ability to sense shifts in their competitive environment, and the agility to respond with strategies and tactics that will drive the greatest return to shareholders.

Accenture calls companies that demonstrate superior mastery of these disciplines "high-performance businesses."