companies operating in a comparable business environment and facing a similar starting point. A "Report on Look-Alikes" (ROLA), which aims to understand why each SBU's performance is above or below “par” by analyzing income statements and balance sheets of strategically similar businesses in more detail. An "Optimal Strategy" report aims to predict the best combination of strategies for the company, based on the experience of other companies in "similar" circumstances which some would consider reasonable. Results The following factors correlate particularly strongly with the ROI and ROS success factors: Investment intensity correlates negatively (explains approx. 15 %): On the one hand, this has the formal-analytical reason that with increasing investment intensity, i.e. the investment volume in relation to sales, the depreciation volume in relation to sales, the depreciation intensity, also increases and thus the profit decreases. On the other hand, if the investment intensity is high, the fixed assets increase and there is an urge to also use these capacities, i.e. to increase the output volume and under certain circumstances to lower the prices and thus the profit margin. Relative market share correlates positively (explains approx. 12 %): The main reason for the positive influence of the relative market share is the economies of scale: The higher the market share, the larger the production volume and the lower the unit costs; this can also be explained by the experience curve. Moreover, as the market share increases, so does the power vis-à-vis the suppliers, which means that better conditions can be achieved. Relative product quality correlates positively (explains approx. 10 %): Important reasons for the positive correlation are above all higher achievable prices for premium products, but also the higher willingness of consumers to buy high-quality services, so that the sales volume increases and thus positively influences the market share (see above). Another reason is the lower complaint costs. Overall, the factors surveyed explain about 70 percent of the differences in profitability between successful and unsuccessful business areas in the PIMS database (measured as variance). Commentary about PIMS It can be argued that a database operating on information gathered in the period 1970–1983 is outdated. However, data continues to be collected from participating companies and PIMS argues that it provides a unique source of time-series data, the conclusions from which have proven to be very stable over time. It has also been suggested that PIMS is too heavily biased towards traditional