"Steady, predictable growth is what every big company strives for and what investors prize above all else. Recently some colleagues and I conducted research to find out just how difficult it is to achieve. To start, we asked a simple question: How many publicly traded companies with a market capitalization of at least US$1 billion grew by 5% each year for five years ending with 2009? We combed the enormous database of Capital IQ. (We selected the 5% threshold because global annual GDP growth averaged about 6% during that period. And note that we were looking for steady performance, not compound annual growth.) The answer surprised us: Only 8% of the 4,793 companies in our sample grew their revenues by at least 5% year after year, and only 4% achieved a net income growth of at least 5% in each of the five years."
by Rita Gunther McGrath

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Harvard Business Review
FROM THE JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2012 ISSUE