Strategic Apex Group LLC

Peer Group Definition – Art not Science

Most consultants take a perfunctory, assembly-line approach to peer group definition. We typically develop several unique peer groups in order to provide different snapshots of the marketplace and reflect the specific characteristics and future expectations of your company. Considerations include:

  • Different types of peer groups
    • Competitive talent peer companies
    • Business competitor peer companies
    • High growth/performing peer companies
    • Best practices companies
  • Process for developing a peer group
    • Parameters
      • Financial, industry, company reputation, executive talent
    • The company’s situation
      • Forward-looking — Where you expect to be in the future
      • Competition for talent; companies that you may look to for hiring executives
    • Eliminations
      • Business reasons: may include poor performance, size, weak management team,different business model
      • Compensation reasons: some companies utilize bizarre compensation practices which you may not want to emulate
  • Multiple extensive databases of financial, business definition and securities markets information