The PIMS database forms the core of all services delivered by The Strategic Planning Institute. The database is a collection of statistically documented experiences drawn from thousands of businesses, designed to help understand what kinds of strategies (e.g. quality, pricing, vertical integration, innovation, advertising) work best in what kinds of business environments. The data constitute a key resource for such critical management tasks as evaluating business performance, analyzing new business opportunities, evaluating and reality testing new strategies, and screening business portfolios.
The primary role of the PIMS Program of the Strategic Planning Institute is to help managers understand and react to their business environment. PIMS does this by assisting managers as they develop and test strategies that will achieve an acceptable level of winning as defined by various strategies and financial measures.
The PIMS database allows for the identification of those critical strategic factors that enable a business to achieve an improved sustainable position. The years of research on the PIMS database and on other cross-sectional databases of business units show quite clearly that profitability is strongly linked to strategic position. The R square of .65 of a regression of ROI on 18 key strategic variables indicates that strategic positioning is the major determinant of business success.
Those businesses that position themselves to win the strategy game through a sustainable advantage also win the performance game. PIMS can also serve as a screen such that a business's future direction, a competitor or a potential acquisition can be evaluated and benchmark performance levels can be measured.