// PIMS® data
What drives business performance, measured.
PIMS® links the market position, operations, and cost and capital structure of more than 4,300 business units to their financial results. The data comes from confidential management accounts, collected since 1967 and never published.
// what each record links
For the same business unit, over 3 to 12 years.
// why the data is different
Recorded where decisions are made, and followed over time.
Most business data comes from surveys, public filings or market snapshots. PIMS records the internal metrics of individual business units, taken from their management accounts, and follows each unit for several years.
At business-unit level
Each strategic business unit (SBU) has its own market, competitors and customers. Group accounts blend several businesses and hide the choices that drive each one. PIMS records market share, relative quality, pricing, innovation, cost and capital where they are decided.
Followed over time
Each business unit is observed for at least three years, five on average. Analysts can compare the same business before and after a change: what it changed, and how its profitability and growth moved afterwards.
Comparable across industries and decades
Every variable has a maintained definition, formula and collection protocol. A business measured in 1985 can be compared with one measured in 2025, and an industrial supplier with a consumer brand.
Not available anywhere else
The data comes from confidential management accounts, collected with each contributing business at the time. It has never been published, is not part of any AI training dataset to date, and cannot be reconstructed from public sources. No other source we know of records relative market share, relative quality and financial results for the same business units over time, across industries.
// what the data covers
What's in the data
Around 500 variables per business unit, in five groups.
Coverage notes
PIMS began at General Electric, so North American, manufacturing-intensive businesses from before 2000 are the most heavily represented. Coverage also spans Europe and Asia, and includes 359 retail, digital and services businesses. No unit spans the full period. Pre-revenue and very early-stage businesses are excluded: without a stable operating history, their figures are not comparable.
// what the data shows
Findings that have held across industries and decades
PIMS research has been published since the 1970s. Three of its best-known findings:
Relative quality pays
Businesses whose customers rate their offering above competitors' earn higher returns, on average, than those rated below.
Relative market share matters
Market share relative to the largest competitors is strongly associated with profitability.
Heavy investment depresses returns
Businesses with high investment relative to sales tend to earn lower returns on investment, unless productivity and market position offset it.
Source: Buzzell & Gale (1987), The PIMS Principles: Linking Strategy to Performance, Free Press. More findings: Nine Basic Findings on Business Strategy.
// models
Models built on the data
Profit Potential Analysis (PAR®)
Estimates the return on sales a business can sustain, from 15 structural factors covering competitive position, market environment, and cost and capital structure. Because they are leading indicators, not accounting components of profit, PAR is a prediction rather than a reconstruction.
Strategic Peer Analysis
Finds structurally comparable businesses in the database and compares the stronger and weaker performers among them, to show which differences account for the gap.
Cause-Effect Model
Maps the direction, size and order of the links between strategic variables and outcomes.
// who it is for
Who works with PIMS data
AI LABS AND MODEL BUILDERS
Test and ground business reasoning
Check whether a model's judgements on strategy and performance match what happened to thousands of real businesses. Use PIMS to evaluate, calibrate and ground models and enterprise agents, or as fine-tuning data.
Discuss access optionsSTRATEGY AND ADVISORY FIRMS
Evidence from comparable businesses
Set targets and test recommendations against the outcomes of structurally comparable businesses, not case studies.
Discuss a licence or partnershipINVESTORS AND PRIVATE EQUITY
Profit potential beyond historical financials
Compare a company's actual return with its PAR. Below PAR can indicate unrealised potential; above PAR, a likely decline towards it. Apply it in due diligence or across a portfolio.
Talk to our teamACADEMIC RESEARCHERS
A documented panel with a published record
Business-unit panel data with maintained variable definitions, used in research published in Harvard Business Review, Strategic Management Journal and Journal of Marketing.
Enquire about research accessWant to benchmark your own business? See Strategic Benchmarking
// access
Ways to work with the data
Every arrangement is shaped around how the data will be used, and agreed under licence. Typical arrangements include:
Research licence. Anonymised extracts for defined research questions.
Benchmarks and model outputs. Aggregated benchmarks and model results for your own analysis or products.
Analysis within our environment. We run the analysis for you, or you work in an environment we control, so record-level data stays with us.
Partnership. Joint research or products built on the data.
Tell us what you want to do with the data, and we will set out the options.
Discuss access options// governance
How the data is handled
// about
Six decades of research
PIMS® (Profit Impact of Market Strategy) began at General Electric in the 1960s as a study of what drives business success. In the 1970s it became a multi-company programme, led by Harvard Business School among others, and was later run by the Strategic Planning Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Publicly known participants include Siemens, Nestlé and P&G.
Its findings have been published in Harvard Business Review, Strategic Management Journal, Journal of Marketing and Long Range Planning, and summarised in The PIMS Principles (Buzzell & Gale, 1987).
pims.ai | malik maintains and extends the database. Headquartered in London, with offices in St Gallen and Beijing, it applies statistics and machine learning to the data, and combines PIMS benchmarking with Malik Management®, under licence, for strategy and organisational transformation.
Check whether PIMS fits your question.
Request the data sheet, or a sample extract under NDA. We will take you through coverage, variables and access options.