Breakthrough Growth Firms: Findings from Corporate India, 1997–2007

Breakthrough growth firms are special category of firms that achieve phenomenal growth in a short span of time. First step towards understanding their growth is to identify such firms. Existing definitions and methodologies of identifying high growth firms are found to be inadequate for the task. Primary objective of this paper is to analyze the growth of these firms and identify those few firms that achieved breakthrough growth in the context of India. Few firms from India grew phenomenally post economic liberalization. The paper discusses various issues in growth measurement, proposes ways to handle them and a comprehensive set of performance indicators. With these indicators breakthrough growth firms are identified using cluster and discriminant analyses. The paper also shows how further knowledge on these firms could be gained using proxies to identify their demographics and primary strategies. Twelve firms from India have achieved breakthrough growth organically with low cost strategies.