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Part I: Related research studies, executive summaries, and tools
Stall Points Related Research Studies, Executive Summaries, and Tools – View and download Corporate Executive Board research directly tied to the Harvard Business Review article “When Growth Stalls” and the Yale University Press book Stall Points.
Part II: Stall Points Related PowerPoint Presentation Resources
Stall Points Related PowerPoint Presentation Resources—View and download exhibits from the book for your presentations.
Part III: Best of Corporate Executive Board Growth Canon
Best of Corporate Executive Board Growth Canon—View and download some of the Corporate Executive Board’s best resources on core, adjacent, new business, and transformation oriented growth.
Part IV: Additional Readings on Corporate Growth
Additional Readings on Corporate Growth—See some of the Corporate Executive Board’s recommended readings from outside the Corporate Executive Board.

Part I: Related research studies, executive summaries, and tools

Overcoming Stall Points and Overcoming Stall Points, Volume II
2006, Corporate Strategy Board

In 2006, the Corporate Strategy Board enhanced and revisited its landmark work
Stall Points. This initiative resulted in the Harvard Business Review article “When
Growth Stalls,” the Stall Points book (forthcoming in 2008. Yale University Press),
and two additional books for our members: Overcoming Stall Points and Overcoming
Stall Points, Volume II.

Overcoming Stall Points provides frameworks for understanding 17
critical stall factors, their relative frequency, and their impact on the organization.
It also establishes that premium position captivity, innovation management
breakdown, and talent bench shortfall are present in at least half of all revenue
growth stalls.

Overcoming Stall Points, Volume II, provides practices to help prevent revenue
growth stalls prompted by the three critical stall factors. The full study includes case
profiles from leading companies such as Agilent Technologies, Caterpillar,
Corning, and LaFarge North America

Download a two-page executive summary of both works

Excerpts from Growth Restarts: Reinvigorating Principled Revenue Growth in
Mature Companies, Corporate Strategy Board, 2003

Approximately half of stalled companies recover. Growth restart companies reenvision
their core businesses, reinforce them with adjacent strategic initiatives, and execute multiple,
small acquisitions to catalyze organic growth. The full study includes case profiles from
Harrah’s Entertainment, Luxxotica Group S.p.A., and Manpower.

Download a two page executive summary of the research and cases
Download excerpts from the study (registration required)
Download the Growth Project Portfolio Diagnostic, an Excel tool which provides a comparison of current and optimal growth project types (registration required)

Part II: Stall Points Related PowerPoint Presentation Resources

	1.2 The Delinking of Top- and Bottom- Line Growth: Income growth and revenue growth rates have been delinking since the mid-1990s. View the year-over-year growth rates (1955-2005) for the Fortune 100.
	1.3 What are the Barriers to Unbroken Growth?: Research by Hewlett Packard and the Corporate Executive Board indicates that there is an upper limit to corporate growth. View the top-line growth experience of the forty-five largest U.S. Corporations across the 20th century.
	1.4 Intuitively Correct—Size Matters to Growth Rate: As organization size increases, the range of growth rate decreases. View a chart which represents an analysis of ten years of growth rates of 1600 publicly traded companies with revenues over $1 Billion plotted against their size at the end of the decade.
	2.1 Revenue Growth Analysis: A “stall point” is a moment in time that best represents a turning point, or significant downturn, in corporate revenue growth. View the methodology the Corporate Executive Board used to identify one company’s stall point.
	2.2 Stacked Odds: 87% of large companies studied experienced at least one stall point across the study period. View how many of these companies returned to significant growth after their stalls.
	2.3 Stall “Danger Zone” Rising Across Time: External barriers to large firm growth have risen consistently since 1955, potentially due to factors such as continued globalization, the ascendance of information technology, and increasingly sophisticated managerial best practices. View how the “danger zone” for median size at small firms has increased to almost $40 billion.
	2.4 Stalling Companies Give Little Warning: Stalls often take executives by surprise. In fact, almost half of the studied companies accelerated into their stalls. View the percentage breakdown of types of growth rates prior to stall.
	2.5 The Myth of Growth Rate “Soft Landings”: Most stalled companies experience a fairly steep, sudden drop-off in revenue growth performance. View pre- and post-stall median growth rates for Forture 100 and Global 100 companies that stalled between 1950 and 2005.
	3.1 Delayed but Certain Penalty: Although markets may be slow to react to a stall, the market impact on the company is devastating. View the relationship between stall points and market capitalization here.
	3.2 The Need for Speed in Recovering From Stalls: Almost all studied companies able to recover from a meaningful revenue stall do so quickly. Once stalled to slow growth, a company has only a 7% chance at recovering to moderate or high growth.
	4.1 The Root Causes of Revenue Stalls: Almost 90% of stall factors are controllable and related to a strategy or organization design decision. View a comprehensive taxonomy of stall factors covering revenue slowdowns for large sized companies across the past half century.
	15.1 Location Analysis of Restart Company Strategies: Successful strategies for restarting growth typically lie close to home. Almost 60% of studied restarts were located in the company’s original core business. View the percentage breakdown of successful strategies for restarting growth here.

Part III: Best of Corporate Executive Board Growth Canon

For more than a decade, the Corporate Strategy Board has led the Corporate Executive Board’s major research streams on core, adjacent, new business, and business model transformation oriented growth. We feature some of our most popular organic and acquisition-led growth-oriented research below.

Excerpts from Innovating Business Models at Incumbent Firms
Corporate Strategy Board, 2007

Despite the recent popularity of business model transformation initiatives, successful business model transformation by incumbent firms is relatively rare. This study helps resolve many of the critical barriers to success by providing cases which help executives create a sense of urgency around business model innovation, engage the organization in a successful exploration of business model alternatives, identifying unaddressed market needs to serve with a new model, and tackling fears of disruption while transitioning to a new model. The complete study features cases from Dow Corning/Xiameter, Owens Corning, and Reynolds & Reynolds.

Excerpts from High ROI Business Building: Developing a Robust Opportunity Pipeline
Corporate Strategy Board, 2005

Developing a Robust Opportunity Pipeline illustrates how companies can avoid growth platform building traps such as pursuing one-off initiatives that do not leverage competitive strengths, assigning the wrong leaders to test new ideas in the market, and slowly responding to rapidly emerging business opportunities. The complete study features cases from ADP, Dow, and John Deere.

Excerpts from High ROI Business Building: Reducing Business Development Uncertanties Corporate Strategy Board, 2004

Reducing Business Development Uncertainties shows how companies can protect their growth platform initiatives by surfacing critical uncertainties and reducing partnership risks in the new business pipeline. The complete study features cases from Air Products and Chemicals, Bank of America, Mars, Procter and Gamble, and Reckitt Benckiser.

Excerpts from Redefining Business Boundaries: Tools for Executing Core and Adjacency Growth Strategies, Corporate Strategy Board, 2003

Redefining Business Boundaries provides segmentation frameworks to drill for untapped growth opportunities in core markets, market mapping techniques to ensure that adjacent growth strategies leverage existing capabilities for competitive advantage, and tools for managing growth strategy execution risk. The complete study features cases from Alcoa, Shell, and Merrill Lynch.

Excerpts from Acquiring Growth Accelerators
Corporate Strategy Board, 2002

Smaller, heterogeneous deal opportunities are an important aspect of new business growth and innovation efforts. This study focuses on tools for managing an increased variety of smaller deals. The complete study features cases from Cargill, Cendant, Cisco, Citigroup, Diageo, Procter and Gamble, and Monsanto.