Situations for outperformance

Many variables, including economic cycles and degrees of market saturation, help a company to enter the top stratum and remain there. What follows is a closer look at four ways companies outperformed the market’s returns to investors. Even the most successful large companies aren’t likely to outperform over time if they don’t find themselves in one of these situations.

Perfecting the business model
Some companies held onto their top positions for at least a decade by continuing to perfect the business model that made them initially successful—and not going beyond it. This group includes a number of high-tech players, as well as retailers and pharmaceutical companies. For most, the core business was still in its high-growth phase thanks to one or more breakthrough products or services. Obviously, management plays a key role in guiding these businesses to innovate and to capture opportunities. But without the undercurrent of real growth in a segment, it becomes very challenging for even a strong management team to deliver outsized performance. Most companies come upon a big idea only once or twice in their entire existence. A global high-tech company, for example, has generated new ideas as its leading breakthrough products slowed down, but the new ones have had a much smaller impact on the overall business. Consequently, the company’s stock performance has lagged behind the market in the past five years. Very few companies have produced a steady stream of new and substantial growth opportunities by aggressively reshaping the business portfolio.

Extending the business model
A second group of companies (for example J&J, P&G), largely in consumer products and pharmaceuticals, outperformed the market by taking advantage of intangible assets such as brands or patents to increase their profit margins and returns on capital. But though owning strong intangible assets was a necessary condition for their performance, it was insufficient on its own. With that as their base, they differentiated themselves from competitors through strategic clarity and consistently strong execution.
As a result, these companies earned high and increasing returns on invested capital. The accumulation of strong brand capital enabled companies in this group to erect effective barriers to price-based competition—barriers that in turn helped them improve their margins constantly. This group of companies also appears to have grown, after adjusting for inflation, at a rate faster than the growth of GDP, probably by taking more market share from competitors.

Rising commodity prices
Many companies owe their sustained outperformance largely to increases in the price of whatever commodities they produce. The price of commodities, such as oil, steel, and commodity chemicals, in turn reflects a number of complex economic, political, and competitive factors beyond the control of most businesses. From the standpoint of fundamental performance, commodity producers do not necessarily stand out: their returns cover their cost of capital but not much more. Their margins remain steady, and their growth is on par with the expansion of real GDP. At the same time, their TRS performance can be volatile as commodity prices swing. The performance of companies in this group of commodity producers may differ widely as a result of the quality of their assets and, to a much lesser extent, of their operating strategies. Over a 40-year period, a majority of commodity players did not outperform the market.

Turning around large underperformers
A small group of companies managed to outperform the market over a decade by dramatically improving their hitherto poor operations. These companies, from diverse industries, regained their vigor after a prolonged period of suboptimal performance and margin erosion. Against the backdrop of low market expectations, their operating margins and returns on capital improved substantially—often under the leadership of new managers—which led to better-than-market returns. For this group, revenue and profit growth tended to be lackluster.