Inspired for business growth: How five companies beat the market

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Do you think of Walmart as a media or technology company? If not, maybe you should. More than half of Walmart’s operating-income growth now comes from its newer growth platforms: online retail media, membership services, and marketplace operations.1 For a business founded on everyday low prices and physical stores, this development reflects something bigger: Walmart has been on a more than decade-long journey to deliberately build new engines of growth on top of its core, and those engines are now materially reshaping performance.  But it is not alone.

What sets them apart is not luck or timing. It is how they commit to growth, how they develop growth engines, and how they accelerate with technology.  

How leaders get ahead and stay ahead.  The authors identified three common characteristics that leaders embody to drive sustained, profitable business growth and outperform the competition.

1. Consistent commitment to funding business growth.  To fund growth, you have to fuel it. While every CEO says growth matters, outperformers translate growth ambitions into concrete, sustained commitments. They articulate a clear growth strategy, commit resources to it, and move decisively.  This level of commitment is evident in how growth outperformers invested through downturns. They continued to fund R&D, launch products, and build capabilities while peers slowed spending—typically investing multiples more than competitors. Leaders do not treat growth as a one-time plan but as an ongoing process, regularly refreshing portfolios and entering new categories.
2. A diversified portfolio of business growth engines.  Outperformers build a portfolio of growth engines over time rather than relying on one or two bets. They strengthen the core business, expand into close adjacencies, and test new sources of growth, allocating talent and capital to each with clear accountability.  Crucially, this portfolio is actively managed and well executed. Leaders track performance closely, double down on growth engines that are working, and stop or pivot initiatives that are not delivering. Many turn to adjacencies that build on existing assets, such as omnichannel models or platform-based businesses.
3. Technology as an accelerator to value.  Business growth leaders know how to harness technology not just to drive growth but to accelerate it. They are successful because they don’t simply develop use cases but systematically integrate data, digital tools, and AI into strategy, operations, and decision-making.  That focus is evident today, with many top growers investing in AI to redesign end-to-end workflows, improve speed and precision, and unlock new business opportunities. A deliberate mix of organic investment and targeted M&A helps build capabilities to accelerate pace.

Leaders at companies with aspirations to outperform should consider these questions:  Are our growth aspirations and commitments bold enough to allow us to grow faster and more profitably than the market?  Do our resource allocations match our growth priorities?  How many independent growth engines do we actually have today—and how many rely entirely on the core?  Which adjacencies genuinely build on our strengths, and which are distractions dressed up as growth?  Where can AI and agentic AI help us build up our competitive advantages?  Which strategically critical capabilities should we build organically, and which would benefit from being developed through thoughtful partnerships or acquisitions?

What distinguishes business growth leaders is not better foresight but greater conviction. They invest when uncertainty is highest, build capabilities rather than chase headlines, and treat growth as something to be engineered rather than hoped for. In a world where only a small minority truly outperforms, those choices increasingly determine who pulls ahead and who falls behind.

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