Over the past decade, executives witnessed an explosion of management tools and techniques such as Change Management Programs, TQM, and Benchmarking. The term "management tool" now encompasses a broad spectrum of approaches to management—from simple planning software, to complex organizational designs, to revised business world philosophies.

Many of these tools offer conflicting advice. One may call for keeping all your customers while another advises you to focus only on those most profitable.

All of these management tools have one thing in common: They promise to make users more successful. Beleaguered managers—struggling to demonstrate that they can adapt to rapid change in an increasingly competitive world—have turned to management tools in unprecedented numbers.

In 1993, Bain launched a multi-year research project to get the facts about management tools. Our objective is to provide managers with information they need to identify, select, implement, and integrate tools that will improve bottom line results.

Over the past nine years, we have assembled a database that now includes 6,323 respondents from over 70 countries in North America, Europe, Asia , Africa and South America.

This year, we received 708 completed surveys from a broad range of international managers. We also conducted personal follow-up interviews to further probe the circumstances under how tools are most likely to produce the desired results.

Highlights of our survey results and details of individual tools trends can be found at www.bain.com/tools/.