OREANDA-NEWS. January 18, 2012. HDFC Bank has been featured by Harvard Business Review on an elite list of 10 companies globally which have grown their net income by 5% every year for the 10-year period ended 2009. A report titled "How The Growth Outliers Do It" by Rita Gunther McGrath, a professor at Columbia Business School, says only 10 of the surveyed 2,347 organizations, all with market capitalization of USD 1 billion, have achieved this consistent performance. What makes this even more special is that HDFC Bank is the only Bank on the list. While there were three companies from the US, 2 each from India and Spain, and one each from Japan, Slovenia and China. Infosys is the other Indian company on the list. Yahoo Japan (Japan), Cognizant (US), and Atmos Energy (US) are some of other prominent names on the list.

These companies have been recognized for "prosper(ing) over the long term" and for being "more stable and innovative than their competition", as the report puts it. "Steady, predictable growth is what every big company strives for and what investors

prize above all else       Steady, consistent growth is difficult to achieve even at

modest rates, never mind by the double digits that corporate leaders are fond of promising," the report says.

According to the report, these companies stand out from for the rest due to the following traits: "They make small bets early and diversify their portfolios", are "active acquirers", "have processes that support speed and flexibility", "build innovations into everyday operations", and "hold on to their talent and keep their senior leadership stable".

The report further observed: "HDFC's (sic) history of entering new growth markets is illustrative. In 1998 HDFC (sic) joined the Cirrus interbank network so that Mastercard holders worldwide could use its ATMs. In 2001 it became the first bank in India to launch an international debit card, in association with Visa. It introduced various

credit card innovations, including a card specifically for farmers           HDFC (sic) moved

early and built from initial success in other markets as well, including telebanking, mobile banking, and foreign exchange services."