REDEFINING HIGH PERFORMANCE

Global business has entered a new era of fluid market and industry boundaries, shifting regional risk and opportunity, changing formulas for economic value, and varied economic shocks. To help companies prosper in this environment, Accenture has recently launched a high-performance business initiative designed to identify the most successful companies in 18 of today's largest industries along with the key value drivers in those industries. The performance criteria for such companies include a combination of market-based indicators (specifically, shareholder returns measured over three-, five-, and seven-year time periods) and oper-ating measures (notably, revenue growth and the spread between total return to shareholders and the weighted average cost of capital). 2004 Morgan Stanley.