As businesses mature, their growth tends to slow. Research has shown that stagnation is a normal part of the business life cycle, but it is not inevitable. Some companies are defying the trend, achieving and maintaining what we call growth in small groups: they grow sales at least twice as fast as their peers for five years, then maintain industry-beating growth for the next five years. In a global study of 848 companies that experienced stagnation (defined as five years of revenue growth below that of the industry), we identified 99 companies that outperformed all expectations over the following 10 years.
