Why do some companies grow faster, adapt quicker, and consistently outperform their peers—while others stall, stagnate, or fade?
The answer is corporate vitality: the ability not just to grow but to sustain value-creating growth over time.
Corporate vitality is a proprietary measure that BCG developed to assess a company’s potential for long-term growth. It is based on nearly a decade of BCG research behind the Fortune Future 50, the annual ranking of companies with the greatest potential for future growth.
What our new report, commissioned by Workday, shows:
- Companies with high vitality tend to grow faster and create more shareholder value. This is because they build strategic advantage and translate that advantage into sustained performance.
- The sustained performance of the most vital firms is measurable. The 50 most vital firms not only have outgrown other firms but also have created (on average) 3.6% more shareholder value every year relative to the MSCI World index.
How to Measure Corporate Vitality
The vitality index identifies four dimensions that consistently set growth leaders apart:
- Strategy. Clear, disciplined choices about where to play and how to win.
- Technology. Scalable, future-ready stacks that power intelligent operations.
- People. High talent density and skills-driven workforce design.
- Culture. Adaptive, aligned values that scale with the business.
Vitality can be measured externally by analyzing patterns we call biomarkers of corporate vitality. For example, for the strategy capability dimension, open innovation and productivity are two of the biomarkers we look at. The way we measure the 24 biomarkers expands beyond financial indicators to include data from earnings calls and patent portfolios. We also incorporate insights drawn from firms’ digital technology stacks, M&A strategies, workforce composition, hiring trends, organization structures, and more.
Vitality doesn’t matter just at the corporate level, it’s a window into broader patterns across industries and countries. For example, the US currently leads in corporate vitality given its concentration of software-driven, innovation-led firms. Europe and China, while strong in sectors incorporating clean energy and biotech, show different patterns of vitality driven by their industrial base.
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Where to Start
We use corporate vitality as a framework to explore the best practices, tools, and strategies employed by executive leaders who have successfully built value-creating growth engines. We document how companies have achieved things on the ground from Adobe’s cloud transformation to Intuit’s AI-powered workflows. We also explore ASML’s cultural onboarding at scale and Nubank’s “speedboats”—small, high-talent teams with direct executive backing that can experiment and scale new opportunities quickly.
By combining deep research with these and other grounded case studies, the report offers a clear, accessible starting point for assessing where your organization stands and how to move forward.
Reach out for your vitality score.
While some sectors—like tech, health care, and professional services exhibit higher overall vitality, every sector includes standout firms that defy the average, as illustrated in the report’s deep dives into manufacturing and other sectors.
As you reflect on your path and prepare for the future—whether that means an IPO, a strategic acquisition, or continued innovation—here are some questions to ask:
- Are you on a path of sustained, value-creating growth with your firm? What are the teams, programs, and initiatives that drive this growth for you?
- Do you have any blind spots in strategy, technology, people, or culture, and if so, what’s your first step to address them?
- How reliably can you model and forecast your return on growth investments, and what could you do to build a better approach?
- Do you have a digital technology stack that helps you grow, and do you manage to put actionable real-time data in the hands of your people?
- How do you ensure that as your company grows, you continue to raise—rather than lower—the bar for new hires and leadership teams?
- How do you adapt your leadership style as your organization transitions from a startup to a scaleup and beyond?
